


Past Tense, Future Tense

by Rioghna



Series: Through Time [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Sarah Jane Adventures, Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi, Suspense, Thriller
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-04-25 16:15:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 38,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4967674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rioghna/pseuds/Rioghna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Ianto's illness, things are just getting back to normal at Torchwood, or they were until John Hart fell through the rift.  </p><p>Sequel to Living Through Time</p><p>Originally on Teaspoon and an Open Mind and FFNet</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Back to Normal

The secret door into the Hub slid shut and the automatic lock snicked back, allowing for the grubby little tourist office to open again to any misplaced tourists. They were going to need another front sometime fairly soon, he thought, what with the redevelopment, again. Time for Torchwood to reinvent its outside appearance or perhaps not, that was a question for another time. Right here, right now, what Ianto wanted was an hour or two to himself without the team around, without Jack to distract him, most of all without Tarleton over his shoulder, ordering him around.

It had been almost two months since he had come back from London. The latest tests showed him healthy, completely cured, and Martha and Chris had finally cleared him for fieldwork again. He was actually looking forward to something, anything, even a weevil hunt. Though it had led to the first argument between him and Jack since he had gone back to his life.

“You know, Gwen asked to be taken off active field duty, except in emergencies, says she is getting too old for it.”

“Yes, what of it? She is a bit more than ten years older than I am. Besides, she has the children, and Rhys, which comes to the same thing.”

“Not on paper, she isn’t. Officially you are only four years younger than she is. You could…” he said cautiously.

“Do _not_ finish that sentence, Jack Harkness,” Ianto said, his voice sharp. There was a noticeable temperature drop as he continued. “I suggest if there is a conflict between the job and our relationship, Sir, then it is time that one of those things will have to be reevaluated.” He didn’t need to say more, Jack knew better than to suggest which one should change.

“I just got you back, Ianto. I don’t want to lose you,” Jack said, reaching out for the younger man. Nothing more was said, nothing had to be. Now he was once again cleared for the field and nothing was happening. It was almost frustrating.

In the office Ianto had little to do that did not involve being in the archives and right now that was the last place he wanted to be. Dr. Tarleton was driving him mad and he was fairly sure it was deliberate. Also there was something about the files and equipment he had been requisitioning that didn’t add up. He thought something was odd before he went up to London, but he hadn’t been able to pin anything down and had been too tired to try too hard.

So when Tish had gone out for a week or so dealing with both the flu and her latest pregnancy, he had volunteered to take over. He hadn’t manned the tourist office regularly in years, but it would give him a chance to go through the files and figure out exactly what it was that their self taught weevil behaviorist was really up to. Unfortunately, the man had made himself at home in Ianto’s domain while he was gone, and at the moment evicting him would serve even less purpose, making him even more suspicious. Slipping into the back office, Ianto pulled the archives up on his laptop and started to run a few ‘special programs’ that Tosh had helped him develop years ago for an occasion just like this one. He didn’t trust the man to log all or even half the files that he was taking, but to find them he would still have to do a search of the inventory and database. The program they had built was designed to log all activity in regards to the archives, something they had sorted after the debacle with Susie and the glove. Now that little piece of software was going to help him figure out exactly what Tarleton was up to. Setting it to run, he punched his comm into internal to keep himself apprised of everything that was going on below. It was one of the things that helped keep up his reputation for clairvoyance.

“Rift activation, looks like a pretty big one,” he heard Patrick call out urgently. Ianto put down the requisition he had been killing time with while his searches ran and turned on the CCTV of the main floor of the hub.

“Where?” That was Thomas, ever practical, much like David had been.

“What kind?” Jack had called from the railing outside his office, his full attention on the Irishman and his computer. “And someone cut that damned alarm. I don’t think that anyone in the building is unaware that we have activity.”

“Sorry, Jack, been recalibrating the alarm system,” Jake said, pulling himself out from under the desk and punching in a code. The noise ended immediately.

“Ok, folks, the rift spike, it’s…Shit, it’s practically on top of us!”

“Where?” Jack was still calm, but moving down the stairs at speed.

“Narrowing it down, it looks like it's coming through up on the Quay, practically on top of…”

“Jack, I’ve been monitoring, I’ve got it,” Ianto said, watching the startled look on the CCTV as he pulled his sidearm out of the drawer and clipped the holster on. He pulled his jacket to cover and headed out the door as the first flap broke out below.

“Ianto, we’re on our way up. Don’t go out there without backup!” Jack shouted over the comm system, even as he directed Jake and Thomas out the lift with the idea of hitting from the other direction, and called Chris to join him. Too late, he knew that as he flung himself up the stairs two at a time. He burst into the tourist office like a tornado, Chris following behind, having caught him up on the straightaway.

“Jack,” Patrick shouted from his monitoring station. “We have life signs, at least one.”

Ianto opened the door to the tourist office cautiously. As anxious as he was for action, he wasn’t about to just jump in it. He might be stir crazy, but he wasn’t mental, or no more than the average Torchwood employee. It was windy and damp outside, practically empty, which would cut down on the number of retcons he had to administer, he thought vaguely, as his eyes automatically searched and discarded…there.

Ianto took one step toward the familiar figure, realizing instantly who it was. He started to say something, to cue his comm., when the man turned and almost collapsed in his direction. He dove forward and caught the smaller man before he hit the ground. Then he saw the blood. “Tell Jack,” the man said, clearly struggling to stay conscious.

“Shhhh, there is a doctor coming. Tell him yourself.”

“Tell him…five, only five now,” he coughed, gripping Ianto’s hand tight enough to leave marks as he lowered them both to the ground.

“Jack, get up here now! It’s John Hart, he’s been shot.”


	2. Emergency

In a haze, Ianto hurriedly stripped the red military coat off the other man to see the damage. He was bleeding profusely, the already filthy tee shirt that he habitually wore stained with blood, and while Ianto was never going to be friends with John Hart, he didn’t want the man dead either, not anymore. There was a time when he would have gladly shot the man himself, but that time had passed, as had his jealousy, for the most part. He had his days, and would probably always be a little uncomfortable with the man who had known Jack when he was mortal and a completely different man. But now with all they had been through, his feelings for the ex-Time Agent had changed. Now he almost felt sorry for him. John would show up and help them from time to time. Ianto suspected that like the Doctor had made Jack want to be a better person, so John wanted to be a better person for Jack. Perhaps he should tell the Doctor that, next time, but probably not. There was another person from Jack’s past who the quiet archivist was not comfortable with, but that was for later. Pushing all the emotions away, he focused on helping the man on the ground in front of him. With a grimace of distaste, the young man considered briefly what kind of infections could be got from that shirt, but as the blood loss was more immediate, he wadded it up and put pressure against the wound even as he heard Jack burst through the door with Chris.

“Ianto,” he shouted, but the young man acknowledged him without letting go of the crumpled figure before him. Chris slid to a stop next to him, dropping down with the jump kit from beneath the desk in the office. It was fairly comprehensive, Ianto himself always made sure of that. “Patrick, keep a sharp eye out, make sure whoever or whatever John pissed off didn’t follow him here. Once we are inside, I want an external lockdown, no one gets in, and let Andy know to keep an eye on things too. What’s his status? ”

“Wait one bloody second, and I’ll tell you,” Chris growled as she gestured for Ianto to let go. She took one look and moved her colleague back into place as she opened the box and stripped the packing off the pressure bandage. “It doesn’t look good, he’s loosing blood fast. We need to get him downstairs; I need the scanner and probably need to get inside. Patrick, go down to the bay and hit that sterilization field that we installed last year. I knew that thing would come in handy.” Ianto had pulled back to let the young medic do her job, picking up the wrappings and folding the coat over his arm. “How are we going to get him moved?”

“I’ll take him,” Jack said, moving forward.

“Can’t you use your…”Ianto waved at the leather strap on Jack’s wrist.

“No,” Chris said sharply. They both looked at her, surprised. “I don’t know enough about teleportation to be sure he will survive. I’m not sure how he survived coming through the rift like that.” Jack just nodded as he lifted his ex-lover and moved toward the door, with Chris beside him and Ianto following behind. “I am going to need a type and cross match, where the bloody hell I am supposed to find blood for this man, I don’t even know what…”

“Mine,” Jack answered as he maneuvered into the elevator with his burden.

“Jack, I don’t…” she started, not completely sure what to ask first.

“We were partners, our blood is a match, or as close enough to make no never mind.”

 

“I’m going to need more hands, I can’t do this by myself,” she said as Jack put the other man down on the table. “And no Jack, you can’t help. Ianto, your field training is a little out of date, and I haven’t had a chance to review you so get down to the cells and kick that skinny arsed vampire up here immediately. He’s still a doctor, though I don’t know how much practice he’s had recently. Thomas,” she shouted as the other man skidded into the room. “Jack’s going to be our blood bank, get him prepped. Now!”

Everyone scattered. Ianto reflected bitterly as he made his way down that it would be just his luck to be sent for Tarleton when he was always the last person he wanted to see. Not that the rest of the team liked him either, but he seemed to take a particularly unsubtle delight in making Ianto’s life difficult for no apparent reason. Behind him he could hear the doctor’s shouting and swearing echoing around the bay.

When he returned, he stripped off his blood stained jacket and made his way to the autopsy, now surgical, bay. Jake was standing by the rail as his field medical training was slim and his big, broad shouldered bulk would take up too much space below. Thomas was laying out instruments and bags of saline on a side table, and Jack was hovering over the still unconscious form.

“Ok, found the…I’m going to call it a bullet but it doesn’t look like any bullet I’ve ever seen. Jack, you know him the best, besides sharing a blood type is there anything else I need to know?”

“No, he’s human, or as close as to make no never mind. John’s almost as human as I am anyway. The Time Agency recruited those who were known physically fit, athletes, soldiers, that sort of thing.” He was scanning the room as he said it, double checking who was there. Jack didn’t like Tarleton either and there were things he didn’t want the other man to know.

“Ok, let’s get you hooked up, Jack. As soon as tight…” Dr. Tarleton came through, barreling past Jake and almost knocking Ianto over in his haste. He had changed into a pair of scrubs and did not look all that thrilled about being impressed into medical service. He gave the younger man a dirty look and moved over to Chris. “Good, we can get started. Tarleton, you are assisting. Ianto, I want you to monitor the I.V.’s and keep the lines clear. Also keep Jack in his place, I don’t want him moving, you hear that, Captain?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said snarkily and lay back on the table. Ianto moved to his side, holding Jack’s hand as Chris placed the needle and the tubing. He kept a weather eye on John though from his place on the table. “I just wish he had woken up before we did this. Make sure you work fast, his metabolism is pretty fast, faster than you are used to. You are planning on anaesthetizing him, aren’t you?” John was not as unpopular at Torchwood as Tarleton, but he could sometimes rub people the wrong way.

“I generally prefer the patients not to try to crawl off the table, yes. Now, can we get on? Tarleton, watch the gas.” With that, everything became all about work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if you are reading this, please, drop me a note, let me know what you think.


	3. The Waiting

“Jack?” Ianto said softly, trying not to startle his lover as he leaned on the railing over the medical suite. John was alive, the monitor softly beeping, but he hadn’t come around yet. “Food is here, you should eat. I’ll watch him,” he volunteered, more out of concern for Jack than John. Not that he expected Jack to listen to him. Jack had a protective streak as wide as the Bristol channel, whether it was him, or one of the team, or even his psychotic ex-partner. John was hardly someone to get warm and fuzzy over, or at least Ianto didn’t think that the other time agent was, but at the moment he was injured and that made him Jack’s responsibility.

“Where is…”

“Tarleton is gone, fortunately. Patrick is still monitoring the Rift, but so far there is nothing coming through. The new predictor program caught two negative spikes, Gwen and Andy got the areas cordoned off in time. They have knocked off for the night. That leaves you and I, and Chris who would tell you to get something to eat as well. In fact, if you don’t, I’ll tell her and you will have to endure the lecture. Go, I’ll watch,” he said, giving him a gentle kiss.

“I just wish I knew what this was all about. Did he say anything before?”

“Yes, I didn’t think of it before,” he said, thoughtfully.

“Too busy helping keep him alive, I’m sure he’ll understand,” Jack said, smiling.

“He said to tell you there were only five now, he was insistent that I understand that.”

“Five, five what and why come here?”

“He wanted you to know, so it must mean something. Maybe something you did when you were together before? Something or someone you…er…maybe a case for the Time Agency?” he asked awkwardly. Jack didn’t talk about that place or what or how they did, well, whatever it was they did, though presumably it had something to do with time. He had told Ianto before that he could say little about it, not because he didn’t want him to know, but because he had to be careful to preserve the timelines. Apparently time itself was a fragile thing. Ianto did know that some things about it haunted him though. Sometimes, on those rare occasions that he was awake while Jack slept, the older man had nightmares, ones that didn’t involve the Doctor or Torchwood.

“I don’t know, really. It could be something to do with the Agency, hell, it could be something to do with a lot of things. After I left…listen Ianto, there are things I haven’t told you, some of them because I couldn’t, and some just because I didn’t want you to think any less of me. I joined the Time Agency when I was relatively young, a boy soldier running away from a war that I thought I could handle. I was wrong. The Agency picked up the pieces, gave me a purpose again, and I was happy, started putting myself back together. I met John, among others, worked, had friends, everything. It was almost like having a family again.” Jack sighed.

“Jack, you don’t have to explain it to me if you don’t want to,” Ianto told him, resting his hand on his arm. “Your past is past, and it doesn’t change anything between us.” The younger man hoped he was right. Jack had some pretty dark secrets, but considering his own shady doings, he didn’t think that he could or would hold it against the man who stood by him after Lisa.

“I think maybe now I do, especially if it is going come back to haunt us, again.” This time there was a grimace, and a quick glimpse of pain quickly hidden and Ianto knew that he was thinking of his brother. “Anyway, the heart of the matter is this, I woke up one morning after I had been with the Agency for more than a decade and found that I couldn’t remember anything for the past two years. I was scared, frantic even. I reported in, afraid that something had happened, that a mission had gone wrong. Turns out they not only knew about the missing memories, but they were responsible, though no one would tell me who or why, just that the files were sealed at the highest level.”

Ianto just stared at him, not sure what to say to his lover. The pain was still deep, that much he could see, but what was there to do? He continued to rest his hand on the immortal’s shoulder, stroking his arm softly, it was all he could think of. He started to say something, he wasn’t sure what, but Jack waved him to stop.

“I went from frightened to angry pretty quickly after that. I tried everything I knew, called in every favor. Most of my old friends weren’t aware of what had happened or so they said, which was not surprising. Time Agents don’t talk about their cases much for obvious reasons, mostly we got together and let off steam, drank, shagged, did anything to remind ourselves we were still alive. After a while, I left, told them to sod off and dropped off the radar. For a while, I did some things, I…I was a conman, selling bits of space/time junk to Time Agents trying to get something important enough or expensive enough that I could bribe them into giving me my memories back. I felt like I didn’t know who I was for a while. Then I met the Doctor, and he reminded me, made me want to be, not just a good person but a better person than I had ever been. The rest you know.”

Ianto knew, yes, he also knew there was more to the story than Jack was saying, but that was neither here or there.  Now that it was out in the open, he could get the rest from him later when they were away from the Hub and the possibility that anyone else would hear. He made a mental note to wipe the CCTV. Jack wouldn’t want his past to become common knowledge even here, and was probably too distracted to remember himself. All was quiet for a moment, except the beeping of machines and the ambient sound of equipment that was part of the background noise of the Hub. The older man wasn’t looking at him, probably concerned about what he would see. Ianto slid the hand from his shoulder, and pulled him into an embrace, holding on as tight as he could, letting him know through contact that nothing had changed. Right now it was all he could do. There were no words, not at the moment anyway.

“So,” Jack said, pulling away just a little, shields up, back to business. “It could be just about anything, and I just don’t know.”

“Eat something, relax for a few minutes. We can stay here tonight in case he wakes up.” Jack nodded with the expression of a man who knows that objections were not going to get him anywhere. Refusing to go and get food would get him a lecture, telling him he didn’t have to stay would get him a look. Ianto crossed him arms firmly and waited while Jack retreated graciously before turning to look at the man on the table below. “What is it you know, John Hart? And why did you bring it here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you are enjoying this. If you like, please let me know.


	4. Waking

Ianto awoke still tired and slightly disoriented.  As his eyes cleared, the room swam back into focus.  It was strange, when they first moved out, he had woken wondering why it was so bright, now he woke in surprise at the darkness.  The bed was empty save for himself, which was not particularly unusual, Jack still didn’t sleep much, but he hoped that his lover had at least gotten some rather than waiting ‘til he fell asleep and then slipping away.  In spite of his over two thousand years of age, Ianto had found Jack remarkably poor at taking care of himself, though he was solicitous, bordering on the overprotective, when one of his team was injured.

 After checking the time, he decided to go find his lover and make sure he got some sleep.  It was still the dead of night, the Hub at its most still and silent.  As he slid the shirt over his head and stepped around the screen he was not particularly surprised to find Chris, a medical journal still in her hand, asleep on the sofa.  Though there were other rooms in the Hub set up for times when they worked around the clock, were injured, or just too tired to drive, they were hardly comfortable or homey.  When he and Jack had moved out, they had left behind most of the furniture and all but a few personal belongings, precisely so that they could use it when they had to, but somehow, what had been their living room seemed to have turned into an unofficial Torchwood recreation room.  Not that either of them minded at all.  Ianto smiled fondly at the doctor as he slid the journal from her hand, and pulled a quilt out of the box to throw over her.  She  didn’t wake up but merely sank deeper into the comfortable cushions with a contented sigh as the archivist slipped quietly from the room.

The rest of the Hub was empty, as close to silent as the echoing old structure with its combination of ancient, modern, and unknown technology, along with the odd alien artifact would allow.  The main floor was empty, even the two flying reptiles either asleep or off for the night.  _Probably out_ , he thought to himself, rift activity, especially those two negative spikes earlier, tended to make Myfanwy a little tetchy and Gwydion was wherever she was.  Looking over toward the medical area he saw Jack standing at the rail, silhouetted against the low light from the room beyond.

“Jack,” he said quietly, not wanting to startle him, or to disturb the patient if that was possible.  Not that John Hart wasn’t disturbed before, he thought, stepping into the arm his lover held out to him.

“What are you doing up?” Jack asked him, looking concerned but distracted.

“Cold bed.  How's the patient?”

“Still out, but I think he’ll start coming around in the next hour or so.  He’s stirring a bit, more like natural sleep.  He always was a restless sleeper.”  There was nothing particularly nostalgic or soft about Jack’s recollection, just a statement of fact.  That alone was enough to tell him how much the other man was really worried. He loved to tell a good story, and as they had been together, he had become more comfortable with telling stories about his past.

“Chris is the best, I am sure she’s got him sorted.  Besides, don’t all of you superior future physiology ex-time travelers heal faster than us poor 21st century models?” Jack smiled down at him and pulled him close for a kiss.  “I know you’re worried, I understand, really.”  Ianto tried to reassure the older man.  They both knew it hadn’t always been this way.  There was a time when Jack’s concern over John Hart would have had him down in the archives in a jealous snit or up here staring daggers at both of them.  But that was past, after everything that had happened, Ianto was completely secure in his relationship with the immortal.

“Thanks, Ianto.  He is…well, not my oldest friend, though that kind of thing gets complicated with time travel, but he is definitely the person who has known me the longest.”

“Partners,” Ianto said, remembering what the other man had said when they first met.  He waited for the reflexive stab of pain and jealousy, but it didn’t come, only a memory of how he had felt back then.

“Yes, but not just that,” Jack said, looking at him while he tried to find the words.  “You know, when John and I met, he was the older of us?  He was a senior recruit when I started my basic training with the Time Agency.  I was an eighteen-year-old war veteran with a chip on my shoulder the size of a galaxy, and something to prove to myself and everyone else.  When the war ended, I had no home, no family to go back to, and no plans for what to do next.  I knew how to fight and how to kill, and had a big hole where my heart ought to be.  First day in the agency was almost my last.  Most of the recruits were from the core planets, some with pretty high-ranking families, and others who were busy trying to toady up.  Then there was me, from a colony world that didn’t even have its own representation.  I was the first one from Boeshane ever to be recruited.” Jack paused, a little lost in the memory, but looking more relaxed than he had.

“So you picked a fight,” Ianto said, wanting to keep him on track, not let him get lost in his head.

“I didn’t need to, they picked one with me, wanted to show what the pecking order was, and who ran the show.  I wasn’t inclined to be pecked.  I was doing all right too, having the advantage of actual combat training and experience.  What I didn’t have was backup, and wanting to beat the shit out of them, not kill them, hampered me.  It’s much harder in some ways.”

“So what happened?”

“John happened.  Oh, that wasn’t his name back then, and you know I won’t tell you what it was.  Hell, he’s probably wanted for something, somewhere, under that name and a dozen more.  He had that cocky grin on his face, just like he does now. He walked right up to their leader and punched him in the jaw, then proceeded to tell them what and where to get off.”

“So, of course, you were grateful and…”

“Grateful.  Hell,I was furious, almost got into a fight with him as well, right then and there.”

“I would have taken you too,” a voice croaked out from below them.

“John,” Jack called out, taking the steps in a leap to land beside his old partner.  Ianto followed at a more sedate pace.

“Don’t you and Eyecandy have anything better to do than natter on about the past?  If you don’t, I can offer some suggestions, might even join in,” John laughed a little, but it was a pained laugh and his voice sounded weak regardless of how he tried.

“You caused quite a bit of excitement around here this afternoon.”

“Always like to make an entrance, you should know that by now.”

“What’s this about, John?”  Jack asked, moving closer to the man on the table.

“I’ll just go and get…” Ianto said, turning to leave.

“Stay, Eyecandy, it won’t take long, and you’re going to hear about it eventually.  Did you give him my message?”

“He did, but it wasn’t much to go on, and you know I have a two year hole where some memories used to be.  I didn’t even know where to start.”

“Remember when I told you the Agency had closed?” he asked.  Jack nodded, as did Ianto.  Jack had told him later, and Ianto had held him while he cried tears of self pity for the memories that would now never be recovered, and for what had or rather would be, but wasn’t anymore.  “There were only seven of us left, Jack.  I took off not long after you did, it just wasn’t the same and the missions, I don’t know, something was happening, but I didn’t know or care enough to pay attention.”

“Only five,” Jack said with dawning comprehension.  “Who?  What happened?  Was it a case, or …”

“I’ll answer all of your questions in time, but for the moment, I think I’m safe.  Just let me…”

“That’s enough, whatever you’re doing to my patient you need to stop right now.  He needs his rest.”

“Chris, this…” Jack said, before being cut off again, this time by the young doctor.

“You can continue this in about six more hours, Jack.  This man has had major surgery, and he is going to get some more rest.  I suggest you do the same.  Ianto, take him out of here and back to bed.  You have my permission to tie him down if necessary.” That broke the tension and brought a chuckle from all parties concerned.

“Oh, and me unable to enjoy it.  You think that maybe I could just go…”

“No,” she cut him off, picking up a syringe and injecting it directly into his IV line.

“But…”

“No, Now everyone back to sleep!”


	5. Answers from the Past

Six and a half hours later they began to assemble in the boardroom.  The entire team had drifted in to the main floor of the Hub, save Tish, who had insisted she was well enough to come in and that monitoring external communications while listening to the meeting on internal comm. was hardly a strain.  Doctor Tarleton was also absent, not surprising since he had not been asked to participate.  Ianto had verified that he was safely away watching Janet’s reaction to some items he had introduced to her environment.  Tish was also keeping an eye on him through the CCTV.  Once again he had been pushed to the background, but neither Ianto nor Jack trusted him enough to have him running loose in the base.  There would be time to sort out his real agenda later, or so Ianto hoped.

As Ianto finished the drinks, he heard Jack and John still arguing as they made their way to the boardroom, Chris trailing just behind so she could fuss over her patient.  The two of them had been at it since John had woken up this morning, since Jack told him his intention of bringing the entire team on board.  “This has nothing to do with your team, this is Agency business.”

“The Agency is gone, you told me that, remember?  So my team is what we have, and I won’t keep them in the dark.  They know what they are doing.  Do I need to remind you that they saved your life yesterday?”

“Yeah, they are good enough for this kind of day to day stuff.  But this is different…No offense, Eyecandy,” John said, noticing Ianto for the first time.  “Suppose I should give you a thank you snog,” he said with a lascivious grin.

“Not necessary, but you owe me a new suit.”

“Can I help you pick it out?  Maybe watch you try it on?”

“Not going to happen,” Jack said, steering him away.

“Since when did you mind sharing?” he said, still looking at Ianto.  “Or would you rather watch?”  Ianto just shook his head.  While he knew that the older man was mostly teasing, he knew that if he said the word, or Jack did, John would be on them like a starving lion.  He often wondered why John did it, why he came back to Earth, to help them or just stop by.  The ex-time agent loved Jack, he knew it, and John knew he knew, but there was nothing that either of them could or would do.  It was funny in a way, Ianto thought, John seemed to be trying really hard to make it up to Jack, penance for Grey maybe.

The boardroom went silent as the three men entered and all eyes turned to them.  “All right there, Vera?” Gwen said, as much to break the tension as anything else.

“Much better for seeing you, Beautiful,” he said, giving as good as he got.  That was enough to get everyone back to normal, the room no longer silent.  Jack seated himself at the head of the table, while Chris settled John at the foot and the rest grabbed for their drinks before scattering to their usual places to listen.   

Captain John Hart looked odd, smaller, without his familiar coat and weapons, sitting there in a clean tee shirt advertising a popular local band borrowed from Patrick who was close enough to his size, though the shirt strained just a little across the chest.  The trousers were also borrowed from Patrick, track bottoms secured tightly around his narrow hips and rolled up to make the difference in the Irishman’s scarecrow height. Ianto had pronounced his boots unsalvageable, covered in mud, blood, and god knows what alien muck. John looked a little ragged in his stocking feet as the doctor would not allow him across the Hub in bare feet, saying the Hub was bleeding cold and she had not saved his life to have him catch a chill.  Ianto had taken the lot to the incinerator along with what was left of the torn, bloody and filthy tee shirt and made a note to pick him up some shirts, new boots, and some other things when he went out, but not until after he found out what the hell had brought the ex time agent tumbling back into their lives with a hole in his back and fear in his eyes.  Ianto didn’t think he had ever seen the other man scared.

“So what is this all about, boss?” Patrick said, leaning back in his chair in studied nonchalance.

“Ask him,” the Captain said, looking down at his old friend and lover.  “It’s John’s show.”

“Well, then lets's get on with it, I have a program to finish,” the Irishman barked.  All eyes turned to the man sitting at the foot of the table trying to look as cocky as he usually did and failing.

“Jack, I don’t…”

“My house, my rules, we do it my way or you can fend for yourself.”  Jack’s voice was stern, harsher than he usually was, and Ianto covertly placed a hand on his lover’s knee, offering a little comfort.

John sighed dramatically but Ianto was fairly sure he had known he was defeated.  “On your head be it then.  I don’t know all of it, mind you, and I don’t know that it will matter.  I’m sure some of you know that Jack and I go way back.  We were both with the Time Agency and were even partners.”  None of this was news to the people who sat around the table.  While Jack didn’t talk about his days with the agency, the current staff had been around long enough to at least know that it existed and that their fearless leader was a part of it, or would be, or whatever the verb tenses involved were for something he had done in a past that wouldn’t exist for close to another three millennia and John had never made any secret of their previous relationship either.   “When you left, Jack, it was like someone had kicked over a beehive.  It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t quiet, and though they tried to hush it up, everyone knew that you had broken out and why.  Me, I didn’t so much quit, as ease my way out.”  Jack raised an eyebrow at that but didn’t say a word, just waited.  They all waited.  The room had gone silent, waiting to find out more, feeling honored that Jack was letting them learn more about him.

“Anyway, I kept up with a few friends from the old days.  Then the agency closed down.  It was sudden and nothing was said.  I couldn’t find out even through my sources.  All that was left were seven agents, and those only because they had left before, gone to ground.  Four days ago, I got a message from one of them, Keenan, to meet him at a little place in the Vega system.  He seemed cagey, on edge, asked me if I had talked to any of the others.  Jack, you knew Keenan, came up in your class.  He was _not_ the nervous type.”

“Nope,” Jack agreed.  “He had a kind of peacefulness, very zen, tranquil.”

“Exactly, nothing got to him.  That’s why sitting in a dive bar on Vega IV with him set me off, that and the fact that he was drinking straight Tellaxian Whiskey.”

“Keenan?” Jack questioned, making it clear to all concerned that this was unusual behavior.  “The man never drank,” he explained.  “His people had some kind of strict prohibition about alcohol, he never touched the stuff.”

“Exactly, so I press him, he tells me that he hasn’t heard from Ladona for several weeks, since she got a message about a family emergency and headed back home.”  “Those two still together doesn’t surprise me.  Did he call her fathers?”

“First thing.  No answer.  He tried hospitals, and tapped into the local police, that’s when he found out that her fathers had been reported missing by a neighbor.  They were gone before she even got there.  I’ll admit that spooked me as well but I didn’t think anything about it much, Ladona worked criminal division in the control office, bound to have some enemies out there.  I tried to calm him down, even offered to go take a look, though I don’t know why, no profit in it.”  John threw the last line out, but Ianto didn’t buy it, and he knew Jack didn’t either.  This was obviously someone they had known, part of a shared past that Jack rarely talked about.

“You said five,” Jack reminded him, more to keep the story going than anything else.  “Who else, and how do you know it isn’t just someone out to get even with her?  She knew the risks, but she loved criminal, hated people who misused time tech for their own advantage.”

“Keenan got a message from his folks back on Cassias, telling him that one of his brothers had been arrested and he needed to come back.”

“Just like Ladona, what did he do?”

“Contacted his family.  They didn’t know anything about it.  His brother was visiting for a family holiday and no one was at his place.  He told them to stay there, you know what that clan is like, they breed like lapelts, and his father is well connected.  They contacted some neighbors of his brother; found out that some strange people had been hanging about, asking questions.  Keenan took off, went under, and contacted me.  I suppose he thought I would be the one with my ear to the ground.”

“If Keenan is alive, then who is the other one?”  Jack asked, obvious dread clouding his usually grinning face.  “In fact, who are all the other ones, I never asked.” That he was not certain he wanted to know went unsaid, they all knew how much Jack had lost over the years, how little he wanted to be told about other dead friends.

“We split them, Kennan contacted Brenna and Jadin, they took their husband and the kids and went under fast.  Jadin said she had thought something odd was going on.  There had been some people out near the farm that weren’t familiar.  The family ruse wouldn’t work with them.”

“No, not at all.  Never figured they would settle down together though.  They fought like cats all through training.”

“Yes, but the make up was great,” John said with _that_ look, and Jack joined him for just a moment before coming back to the point. 

“Who then, and how did you get shot?”

“Hopper.  I went to warn him, but I was too late.”  There was genuine sorrow in the other man’s eyes, and when Ianto looked at Jack he could see the pain.  This was someone who had been important to both of them.  “I got one of them, though, I’m sure of that, then someone got me from behind, I hit the button and got out of there.  Now, you know.”

“So someone is hunting down time agents, that it?”  Jake asked from his corner, the first thing he had said since John had walked in.  “And you came here?  Trying to get people killed is that it?”  Jack started to open his mouth, but John beat him to it.

“No one knows where Jack is or when he is.  I never told anyone that I knew.  They don’t even know that he’s still alive.”  Ianto looked at Jack and could tell that he was a little surprised by the strange show of loyalty from his former lover.  But then, John had always played by his own rules; everything Jack had ever said about him bore that out.  “And I jumped more than a dozen times before I landed here, left them a lot of noise on my trail.”

“Almost got yourself killed in the process, too,” Chris said.  “For now that’s enough.  Now that you have your answers, I need to get my PATIENT back into bed. Jack, I’m going to have him kip in one of the spares, get my autopsy table back.”

“Ok, John, you stay in bed and do as she said, or I’ll make you.”

“Going to tuck me in or tie me to the bed, wouldn’t be the first time?"he said, trying to reclaim his cocky grin but it was a little on the thin side, and there were lines of pain and weariness digging their way into his face.

“You would enjoy that too much. No, I’m going to have Thomas come down there and do it, and I guarantee you won’t enjoy it.”  The big blond weapons specialist gave a dark look at both men, but maintained his silence as the doctor chivvied the injured man out the door with several four letter punctuated comments on patients who insisted on overdoing it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual thank you for reading. Please keep the comments up, it keeps me writing.


	6. Connections

“Ok, guys,” Jack said, leaning back in his chair, opening the floor to his team now that they were alone.  “Questions and options.”

  
 The room exploded as everyone started talking at once. After a few minutes Jack held up a hand for quiet. No one noticed, so busy all trying to be the first to comment. Ianto watched with a just a hint of a smile as Jack rolled his eyes and stood up, shouting for silence as Chris slid back into the room and her chair. His voice cut through the babble like a knife. “All right kids, one at a time, just like at school. Let’s start with what we do know. Thomas, you examined the bullet, right?”

“If you could call it that, yes,” the quiet blond answered.  Responding to Jack’s inquiring look he continued. “It isn’t like any bullet we have seen before. We’ve run it against the database and it does not match any cataloged alien weapon and the metallic composition is also unfamiliar.”

“Tracking? Is it giving off a signal?” Ianto asked, more concerned with what it could bring down on them. Jack nodded his approval.

“Not that we could detect,” Jake answered for the other man. “Patrick and I checked it for every kind of signal and radiation signature known to Torchwood. We were going to ask you to take a look when you had a chance, but we put it in the containment box just to be on the safe side.”

“Good work.  I’ll take a look later, maybe it’ll mean something to me. Anything else?” The two men looked at each other and Jake nodded, speaking for both of them as he usually did. The two men were both specialists in weapons, one originally SAS, the other a UNIT transfer, but between the two of them they knew about the inside and outside of any weapon they werely likely to come across.  They had formed something of a team since they arrived. Jake loved the technology, could take anything apart and put it back together just to see how it worked. He also spent time helping Patrick, and even taking over a lot of the maintenance that had once fallen to Ianto. Thomas, on the other hand, was the silent type. The former soldier only spoke when absolutely necessary but he had a quiet, dry humor that showed up at odd times, and strange ways, including the pranks that everyone had always engaged in just to keep life interesting.

“Okay, Chris?”

“He is healing fast, faster than I would expect of anyone but you. He keeps it up and I’ll have to give him a smack ‘round the gob before the day is out.” A snicker went through the room, hidden quickly at a glare from the diminutive physician. She wasn’t kidding about that slap.

“I’ll talk to him,” Jack said, trying for contrite and failing. It wasn’t as if everyone didn’t know what John was like; if anything, it proved that the man was going to be all right.

“So what about the victims?” Gwen asked, her e-pad in front of her. “What did they have in common?” That was Gwen. After all these years she still tended to approach things as if she was still a WPC. Not that there was anything wrong with that approach, it had been useful over the years. She had turned into quite a profiler in her time at Torchwood and her inquiring mind and compassion, while sometimes a bit hard to take, made her good with victims and witnesses alike.

Ianto wondered how Jack would take the questioning though. He had not liked talking about his past at the best of times, and exposed like this, he wasn’t sure that the immortal wouldn’t balk. Everyone was looking at Jack sitting at the head of the table trying to appear casual, but Ianto knew better. He could see the tension in the firm jaw and the tightness in his shoulders. He made a note that a massage was on the books for tonight, but he wasn’t about to break in on this.

“What do you want me to say? I knew them, yes. But that was a long time ago and I don’t know what this is about. It could be anything…”

“Jack, we have to start somewhere, so we start with the victims. Tell us what you can. Come on, Jack, otherwise we’re just sitting here on our arses waiting for something to happen.”

“I will tell you what I can,” Jack said, sighing. Ianto reached out and brushed a hand against his knee, reassuring him. “It was a long time ago and it isn’t exactly… I don’t even know where to start.”

“Anywhere, whereever you want. Just talk and we can start charting it from there.”

Jack took a deep breath and then leaned back in the chair. “John, you know about already; we were partners for a while, lovers on and off…”

“Where and when did you meet him and the others?” Patrick asked. He already had all seven names listed and put up on the screen, even Jack’s, ready to start connecting dots.

“John was ahead of me, senior recruit officer, a sort of cross between a drill instructor and a house prefect. Kennan and I were in the same training class, so was Ladona. He also came from an outlying colony world, but one much larger than the one I came from. Ladona was from one of the central planets, I won’t tell you which one as it would make no difference to you anyway. But her dads belonged to one of those ‘back to nature’ movements. They headed off to one of the smaller worlds out on the edge of the system as soon as she went off to training. She always said that they had the courage of their convictions but didn’t want to make the choice for their children. She was the youngest.” Jack paused, his eyes distant, seemingly trying to sort things out in his head.

“She and Kennan were married?” Patrick asked as he added a line between the two of them. Underneath he listed ‘fathers’ as collateral victims.

“Yeah, I would assume so, but you’ll have to ask John about the formalities. Kennan's family belonged to some kind of strict religious group. They didn’t believe in celibacy or any of that stuff, but they believed in permanent commitment partnerships. Once you found the person you were meant to be with, it was supposed to be for life; so, if they were still together it would have been.”

“So the church survives then?” Patrick asked, looking a bit surprised. They all knew the Irishman was a semi permanently lapsed Catholic, but every now and then his upbringing showed.

“Not just the Catholic Church, there are hundreds of religions out there,” Jack said, enjoying the digression, however brief. “Some are the descendants of earth religions, Christian, Catholic, Neo-Catholic, Reformed Orthodox Evangelical Anglican, the new Jewish Orthodox Reform movement, and by new they meant it was reformed from the old Jewish orthodox reform movement, Druidic Pagan brotherhood, and of course there are new ones; some started on worlds we colonized, some from alien cultures, even some hybrids.”

“What about you?” Gwen asked, just curious, using this rare openness to get more information from their leader.

“My parents were kind of nominal Neo Scientific Naturists. It’s…hard to explain, kind of a cross between hippies and science geeks with a little new age philosophy thrown in is about as close as I can get without going into all of it. I’ve probably forgotten most of the practice anyway.” It was clear Jack was finished with the question, though.

“So what about the other three?” Ianto said, stepping in. He knew Jack well enough to know that they would lose him if they didn’t keep going. It was painful for him; he knew that and the sooner they finished with this first round, the sooner he could drag his lover off to lunch outside the building, just the two of them, an idea that had come with Gwen’s first question. Jack needed to get away and decompress.

“Brenna was in the same class with Kennan and I; Jadin was a year behind us. They are both from the same world, can’t remember the name of it though, and wouldn’t matter if I could, you’ve never heard of it. Their culture tends to run to tripartite relationships, but I never figured them for the long term. They fought all the time, broke up, got back together, found other partners, shared, changed. But come to it, I’m not really surprised. They always ended up back together, even after training they were more on than off. John was with them for a while; so was I. Actually there was this one weekend when the four of us…”

“Okay,I think that is enough of that right there, thank you very much for sharing. What other connection did they have with the others?” Gwen asked, blushing in a way that only Jack and John Hart could cause. 

“You mean besides being lovers? No, that isn’t right. I don’t think either of them were ever with Keenan, though I think Jadin and Ladona had a brief thing. Jadin went Criminal division after training, field agent. Brenna was with Tech last I knew. They made good partners in that Jadin would bring the stuff in and Brenna would make it work, take it apart, whatever was necessary. Actually we all used Brenna for our tech, if she was available. Jadin and I partnered for a couple of missions; actually we all paired with each other from time to time.”

“And the other guy? What about him?” It was Jake’s turn to ask the question, though he had kind of blanked out fiddling with something on his pad. Ianto rather wished he hadn’t. There was something about this one that was important to Jack, John too if he was any judge. This was definitely something better to ask when they were alone.

“Hopper was…special. He was a senior recruit officer too. Probably one of the most genuinely nice men I have ever known; even John was fond of him, and that is a rarity. Never knew where he was from, he didn’t talk about his life before the Agency. The only thing I really know is that he came to it late and was about ten years older than John, more or less. I think he was in some kind of military service before though, something about his eyes. There again, John might know. Hopper never had family that came around or messaged or video phoned that I know of. He and John were partners for a while. Hopper was Keenan’s training officer, we did our training mission together.”

“And your training officer?” Gwen asked, though she was fairly sure she knew the answer.

“John Hart.” Another line appeared on the screen connecting the four men.

“What about the others?”

“Brenna and Jadin did their training run together. Brenna took a year longer before doing her field mission because she did an extra year in tech. I don’t remember who did their mission though; no one on that list, that’s for sure. John might remember, hell, I might remember given some time, but it has been a while.”

“What about cases you worked together, did you ever work a case all together?” Gwen asked. Jack leaned back with a sigh. Ianto could see that it was starting to wear on him. This was definitely the last question, he decided. Jack needed to get away from it for now. He would order them in lunch and take his lover away, if only for a little while.

“Yes, probably, almost definitely…I can think of one or two, but you have to understand, there were also cases that we might have been working together and not known about. Sometimes teams would work at different ends of something and not know it until they ran into each other, or the case ended. I…”

“I think it is time to take a break. Jack, why don’t you check on John?” he said, rising before any objections could be raised. Everyone else was too startled to respond as Jack left the room, his face crossed in gratitude and confusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glad you all are enjoying this. This story is a bit of a twister, so hang on to your hats. Please keep up the comments.


	7. Break

“Ianto, what was that all about then?” Gwen asked. She looked like she was building up a head of righteous indignation, but Ianto cut her off at the ground.

“Do you think this is easy on Jack? I know you all want to know more about him, but you are talking about people he knew, people who were important to him. He has just found out that most of what he knew is gone, really gone, and his ex-partner has been almost killed. What makes you think this kind of interrogation is even going to help?” Gwen was still open mouthed in shock, but Chris was nodding, and Patrick had the good grace to blush slightly as he looked down at his computer. No one else said a word as he keyed his comm. “Tish, order some pizza for this lot please. No, Jack and I are going out. Thank you.” He keyed out and looked at them. Gwen had closed her mouth now, but she was looking a little abashed as well.

“So we’ll sort this lot out, and you…”

“I’m going to take Jack out for lunch, and when we come back, maybe he will have remembered something more; certainly he will have had a little more time to take it all in.” He turned sharply on his heel as Patrick and Gwen were sorting out the list of tasks. Chris met him in the door and patted his arm in understanding. Jack had taken care of him when he was ill, had taken care of all of them at one time or another; now it was his turn to take care of Jack, or as much as the other man would allow him to.

Ianto checked the food order and then detoured to Jack’s office for his coat. It was not a terribly cold day, not for Cardiff, but the coat was more to his lover than just a way of keeping warm, a cross between armor, camouflage, and a security blanket. Right now he figured that Jack needed all the security he could give him. He took a last glance around the Hub as he headed down past the autopsy bay. John Hart had been moved to the first of the recovery rooms down the hall toward their old quarters. Chris didn’t like to ‘keep the live ones on the slab for too long’. She said it impeded their recovery to wake up on an autopsy table.

The door was open, and Ianto could see Jack leaning over, talking earnestly to his former partner. “You think about it. We need information and you have a lot more of it than I do.” Ianto cleared his throat, not wanting to interfere nor to appear as if he was eavesdropping. No hope of that though, he realized as Chris shouldered by him.

“All right, enough,” she called.

“Never enough, Darlin’,” John drawled. His cheeky grin was almost back up to par and even the medic’s glare could not dim it.

“You out, before you wind him up even more,” she said to the Captain, ignoring the injured man as best she could and still examine him.

“Think about it, John,” Jack said as he turned practically into his lover’s arms as Ianto held out his coat. “We’ll be back.” With that final word he turned around, wrapping an arm around the other man and as they headed for the door.

“Don’t suppose I could get you to bring me back a curry…gowp?” Ianto turned just enough to see that Chris had finally successfully shut him up by stuffing a probe into his mouth, leaving the time agent looking like a very confused carp.

Through the elevator and out the door onto the quay, the two of them said nothing, just enjoyed the silence. Out in the fresh cold air, Ianto turned to look at Jack for the first time. He didn’t care how long they stood on the quay until he started to feel the cold. The weather was not too bad for the time of year, but a chilly breeze was blowing in from the sea. So he shifted his position slightly, leaning in against Jack’s side to get what little warmth his lover’s body offered. The other man shifted just a little, enough to lean in and accept the comfort.

They both supported themselves on the railing, propped up on their forearms, and Ianto put his hand over Jack’s. Jack leaned more on his right arm to put his left around Ianto’s shoulders to pull him even closer. For another moment they stood enjoying the togetherness, just enjoying the presence of the other, the play of the waves with the sun dancing on them and the coming and going of the ships in the bay. But as much as Ianto enjoyed just standing there with Jack, he clearly felt the cold creep up inside him and he shivered. “Wanna go for lunch now?” Jack asked and Ianto nodded with relief.

The two settled into a quiet corner of their favorite Indian restaurant after the usual round of greetings and flirting, though he could tell Jack’s heart wasn’t in it. He did his rounds, joking with the current influx of grandchildren and great grandchildren, as he had been doing since the elders of the Surresh clan opened the restaurant some time in the 60’s or 70’s; he wasn’t sure. It had been sufficiently long enough ago that they had time to build up a huge family and enough loyal customers to make the move into the bay with the redevelopment possible. Add to that they had never seemed the least bit curious about Jack, taking his lack of change in stride. The waitress, one of the legion of beautiful black haired granddaughters that Jack could name and he could never tell apart, dropped off chutneys and breads while inquiring about their selections. With a nod they ordered their usual, neither of them feeling much like sorting through the menu.

They sat quietly as the waitress returned with steaming mugs of spiced tea, rich with cinnamon and cardamom. Jack broke one of the poori and started to load it down with onion raita and various other things while he just sat and waited, nibbling on a corner of the cracker like bread. “It’s good,” Jack said finally as though needed to fill the silence. Ianto nodded and waited, knowing that he would get around to it in his own time.

Lunch arrived and they had started in before Jack spoke again. “It’s just... I’m torn inside. I had more or less accepted that they were all dead to me, no matter what. I was never going to see them again. They were part of my past, things… people that I loved and cared about sure.” He paused, but Ianto said nothing, just smiled encouragingly. “I let go of that pain a long time ago. After all, over two thousand years is a long time. The memories are buried in the background, like a song that you loved as a kid. Not forgotten really, just surfacing at odd times for reasons only a psychologist would understand and maybe not even then.”

He could see that look and knew how Jack was. John had exploded all over his peace, tearing the protective layers off all at once, like ripping a bandage off a wound. It all came open, both the good and bad. “I remember Bren’s smile, the way Kennan would take a joke completely seriously, without letting on. Hopper had this way of letting you know you’d done him proud without really even saying anything. Even John had his good points, though they were few and far between,” Jack said. It was the first real smile he had seen since they sat down.

“You and Hopper?” Ianto asked. It wasn’t jealousy really, nor was it idle curiosity completely. It was something about the way Jack said his name, a gentleness.

“Together? No, never. Not that I wouldn’t have, I suppose. Actually I don’t remember him with anyone really. Though he and John might have had a thing once, not that either of them said, more like an impression I had. No, Hopper was a good guy, great friend but I don’t really…”

“Just, I thought everyone from your time…” he trailed off, feeling like he had just said something unbearably stupid.

“We are overall freer about sexuality, if that is what you are asking. And yes, a lot of people are… friendlier in a sexual way than you are here and now. But not everyone is comfortable like that, no. Kennan wasn’t, certainly Hopper wasn’t. But it didn’t mean any more or less, it’s all about personal choice. People are people even in my time. Take relationships, some people are monogamous, some polyamorous; people marry or just live together, some are even celibate. The difference is, there’s no stigma attached. Put simply, no one cares. The possibilities are too numerous for anyone to get too messed up about.”

“Unlike now,” Ianto said, smiling.

“Unlike now. But that doesn’t matter. What matters in the here and now is I have you, that’s all I want and all I need and nothing is going to change that,” he said, reassuring the younger man while reaching under the table to put a hand on his knee. “And who knows… maybe later, after everyone has gone home…” There was a hopeful smile on his face and just the hint of his usual boyish grin.

“Could be,” Ianto conceded with a smile of his own. “Mind you, one more comment from Captain Hart and I may give him a belt myself.”

“Nah, don’t do that. He’ll just think you’re softening and we’ll never get rid of him.”

Ianto laughed but he couldn’t help the traitorous thought, dragging him back. Unwillingly he opened his mouth almost as if he had no control. _No, don’t_ , shouted a little voice, not now, _not when it is so good_. But he couldn’t stop, couldn’t help himself. “Jack, what are we…”

“I don’t know,” the immortal cut him off, obviously no more anxious to get back to it. “But we’ll sort it out, later.”

By the time they had finished dessert and walked back to the Hub, Jack was more or less back to his usual self. “Please let them leave him alone for just a little while,” Ianto murmured to himself as they took the invisible lift together. He even carried a takeaway bag for the patient, knowing that it was just easier than listening to him. Jack gave him a quick peck and a promise laden leer before heading off to the armory to pass judgment on the slug that Chris had removed from John’s back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this, glad you are enjoying. Please keep the comments coming, it's been a hell of a day.


	8. Not just the other shoe, but a different pair

Ianto headed for his coffee machine to start the afternoon brew. Tea was well enough, in its place, but Torchwood Three ran on gallons of his special caffeinated gold. He gave a nod to Chris as she walked past, as well as the bag to be passed on to the patient. Just because he brought it back didn’t mean he wanted to deliver it and listen to him.

He was just setting the cups on the tray when his com beeped. “Ianto?” Tish called. She must have seen him come in on the CCTV, he thought as he answered and added another cup.

“I told you no coffee 'til after the baby,” he joked. “I’ll make you up a special decaf though, when I am done with this lot.” Her laughter tinkled in his ear.

“You’re a love. But actually I wanted to let you know that your computer program has finished running.”

Ianto cursed softly, almost upsetting the cups. He had forgotten to set the reminder to his PDA. Actually he had completely forgotten about running the search in the aftermath of John Hart’s sudden appearance. He looked around to see where everyone was. Jack was still in the armory with Thomas and Jake, running some kind of scan by the look of it. Patrick was nowhere to be seen, probably having a kip in the spare room that he had practically taken as his own. Sometimes Ianto wondered if he still had a flat, the rest of the time he wondered why he bothered. It had been a long night though and he had been on alert so he deserved the rest. “I’ll be up as soon as I deliver this,” he said, moving to drop off the steaming mugs. Gwen was also not evident, but he could see by the state of her desk that she was around, so he set her coffee on the coaster that he unearthed from the stack of papers and went on. He could hear Chris banging around in autopsy. Of Tarleton there was no sign, and he rarely included him in the afternoon caffeine refuel anyway.

After he finished, Ianto started on the special decaf latte, a blend of milk and syrup that almost made the decaf drinkable, in his not very humble opinion. He had invented it years ago for Gwen when she was pregnant with the twins and practically unlivable and it had served them well since. With the single mug, he headed for the tourist information office.

Tish took the cup with gratitude and the offer of a break while he read his report with delight. “Seems this one is planning to spend the entire time on my bladder.”

Ianto waited until Tish had gone before checking his report. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, he did. But he was starting to feel just a little foolish. Sure, he didn’t like Tarleton, but was that any reason to suspect him? Okay, he wasn’t even sure what he suspected him _of_ actually. Still the man had worked for Torchwood One, special projects, whatever that was, and reported directly to Yvonne Hartman. That was enough for at least some suspicion.

He settled at his desk and called up the report, automatically hitting both the print and the archive save features before he even began perusing the data. He was expecting a long read but it didn’t take much for the pattern to begin to emerge and it frightened him, and after over a decade at Torchwood, very little frightened him.

“Jack,” he called over the comm., keeping his voice as neutral as he could. “I need to speak to you.”

“Impatient, I like that. But I’m still working on this bullet, is it important?”

“Very.”

“Okay, come on down as soon as you can.”

“In private, Jack, it is about that report…” he said, knowing that his concern was seeping into his voice.

“Ianto Jones, you know how I love to hear that from you,” he said, keeping it deliberately light. “My office in ten?”

“Ten minutes, Sir,” he said, closing the connection. He finished a quick scan of the report.  It wasn’t getting any better. Ianto was just closing it as Tish reappeared, looking much relieved. “Tish, do you know if Dr. Tarleton is around?” he asked casually. The little moue of distaste told him more than enough about her opinion.

“He took himself off for lunch, said something about pizza and good dietary health, not to mention indigestion, and hadn’t come back. If we are lucky, he gets eaten by a weevil.”

“We are never _that_ lucky,” Ianto said with a smile, gathering the last pages from the printer as he headed back down into the depths of the Hub.

Ianto still had seven minutes before he had to be in Jack’s office, so he stopped to make them both another cup of coffee. He knew that they would both need it after what he had discovered. The information in the report was not good. Jack’s mug was still with him in the armory, so he pulled another down, made two coffees, and headed for the office. Making coffee gave him a moment to clear and calm his mind, organize things, his own form of meditation.

He had just settled down in the chair when Jack came out of the armory. “Okay, you two… Jake, keep at it. Thomas, go home, come back after you’ve had some sleep.” He came across the floor, coffee cup in hand. Ianto smiled at that. It had taken him years to get Jack to stop leaving his mugs around. Now he just needed to get him to put them up rather than carrying them with him until he either went by the kitchen or more often, until Ianto took it away from him.

“On Time?” Jack asked smiling at his lover, as he closed the door behind him.

“Always, Sir,” he said with a smile.

“So you have the archive report.”

“Yes, I wish we had CCTV down there. Then I could also see what he is about.”

“We should, but there’s nothing we can do about it now. So you want to summarize or let me find out the bad news for myself?”

“I think I would rather have you look through and draw your own conclusions. Just in case I’m being a bit…”

“You? Never, but I’ll look through just the same. Two heads and all that,” Jack said distractedly as he looked at the sheets in front of him. “Oldest first then?” Ianto nodded and Jack settled in his chair with his coffee and started in. First he scanned through all the pages before starting over at the beginning and reading more closely.

After a couple of minutes watching him, Ianto started to get restless. He picked up the used mug and headed out to the kitchen to rinse it out. Returning, he started to sort the papers that Jack had managed to scatter over the surface of his desk, just waiting for him to finish, and praying he would tell him that he was wrong.

“So, weevil, weevil… right at the beginning everything is in order, probably keeping it all aboveboard, checking the layout. Looks like he waited almost three weeks before he starting probing.”

“Yes, Sir,” he said, still trying to stay neutral.

“Then we have…weevil fight club, still within the range… Okay,” he paused, face going hard as he spotted a line. “Cyberman emotional inhibitor chips, that is definitely not weevil related tech,” he said, continuing to read. “And what is this about that control unit that Susie worked on briefly?”

“I saw that, but I didn’t have time to pull the files and it was before my time,” he said. While Ianto had spent a lot of his spare time familiarizing himself with the technology, gadgets, gizmos, and outright junk that they had salvaged from the Rift, even after a decade or more, he hadn’t read everything.

“That is because there isn’t much, the damn thing is dangerous. It fell through from a planet in the Magellan cluster, probably 31st, early 32nd century by the look of it, and a nasty piece of work too. I was away at a UNIT conference when it happened. Susie wasn’t thrilled when I took it away from, her but…”

“What does it do?” he said, trying not to let his frustration show.

“It is used by a particularly unpleasant group of humanoids that tried to take over their home galaxy, or rather will try. The control unit is exactly what it says on the tin, they take captives, use the control unit, and make them fight for them. Not a pleasant piece of technology, the people they use it on are aware the whole time, but unable to do anything.”

 

“Complete physical control?” he asked, appalled.

“Yep, doesn’t last too long, they’re cannon fodder, and if they don’t get killed on the field, the control unit drives them mad. There is no remedy for it, at least none that we ever found. It’s a nasty piece of hardware, but what does it have to do with weevils?” he said thoughtfully.

“Could be that the weevils are just cover, sir.” Ianto said, still keeping up the formal tone that he tended to use at work, especially when he was worried, though he would never admit it.

“No, he put too much time into it for it just to be a cover. At least he can’t get access to the secure archives or the safe. A couple of days after he got here, he tried to use an old Torchwood One override password to gain access to the secure archives. When I called him on it, he said he was looking for some files that he thought were in there. I figured he was just checking the security, I mean he has been working for UNIT. I should have been more suspicious though, damn it.” Jack stood and started to pace.

“But what was he after?” Ianto said, thinking out loud. “Just checking what we had?”

“No, there are too many other things he could be interested in. I haven’t gone through it all, but I didn’t see anything that suggested a survey of what we had locked up. It looks like everything there is to do with mind control, that or weevils. He spent an awful lot of time down in the vaults with Janet.”

“We have CCTV down there. I’ll have Patrick call up the footage as soon as I see him. I suppose someone will have to go through it all, it’ll be dull but…” He stopped. The look on Jack’s face told him what he needed to know. “Jack?”

“Physical control, mind control, weevils… they’re stronger, tougher, but uncontrollable. What if he is looking for a way to control them, but why? And for who? I can’t see UNIT authorizing this kind of research and certainly not any part under Win’s command. At least we know he didn’t get anything. Ianto, I need you to go into the archives, check the files, you know what you’re looking for, see if anything has been taken. I am going to double check that everything is where it’s supposed to be, then we need to place a call to UNIT.”

“What if he comes back? He has no way of knowing that we’re on to him,” he asked moving toward to door.

“Tish,” he said, keying his comm. “I want you to keep an eye out for Tarleton, call me if he’s coming back in.” He paused, listening to her. “Yes, he has, and yes, I know, you didn’t. Yes.” Ianto almost laughed as he watched Jack try to get a word in edgeways.

“Jack, what are we going to do if he comes back?” he asked.

“At least for now, we pretend that nothing has changed, we need to know what he knows and who he’s working for. On your way down, get Patrick up, we need that CCTV footage, and get Chris, we’re going to need to see if any of that’s even possible.” He called as Ianto started to leave the room before Jack found something else for him to do ‘on his way down,’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, and now is where it gets twisty. thank you for reading, please review and all those lovely things.


	9. Beginning bug hunt

“Jack, we have a problem,” Ianto called.

“Just a second,” came the reply and he could hear the change as Jack switched him over to the main speaker. “What do you have?” he said. Behind him, the sound of keys tapping and muttering in Gaelic told him Patrick was back up and at his workstation.

“The scans of the inside of the control device are missing, the hard copies, as well as a schematic of the emotional inhibitor chip. Probably thought no one would go looking for them or assume they were lost. He wouldn’t know there are complete lists of everything kept in a red flagged file.”

“That’s my man,” Jack said with pride. “Anything else missing?”

“More files, he must have found them while looking for other things. More of the same really, mind control, emotional control, weevils, along those lines. It would have been easy enough to find some of these files, cross referencing, category log…”

“Got it, see what’s missing from those files as well. What else do we know, people?”

“His laptop is still down here, Jack. Shall I bring it up?”

“I’ll take it on when you get it to me,” Patrick called out. “I want to see what else he has tried. Asked me for the code to secure archives, he did, trying to be casual like. I told him he would have to ask Jack for that one, and need your approval. He wasn’t all that keen after that, tried to hide it but he was furious. I’m just tracking now to see if he tried to hack it himself.”

“You didn’t mention this before because?” Jack asked, an edge in his voice.

“Didn’t seem important, figured he was just testing. I thought I put him off, discouraged him.” Patrick was obviously irritated with himself, his accent getting thicker as he did.

“You did fine,” Jack reassured him. “He was sent here to get specific information.  The question is, sent here by whom? I’ll know more when the Brigadier gets back to me. Anyone else?”

“Oi, I looked at this stuff you sent me. Nasty piece of work, that one, but then I figured him for the mad scientist type. He tried to make up to me, all doctors here, chummy like, but I sent him off that quick. Bloody nosey parker he was. But this... this is beyond…” the doctor trailed off into a string of expletives in her heavy northern accent that blurred it into nothing but white noise in the background.

“Anything on the CCTV?” Ianto called out, trying to be heard over the noise above.

“Tish?” Jack asked.

“He hasn’t come up the Plass, but I’ll keep watching.”

“Patrick.”

“I tracked him out of the office and down the Quay, up past that pizza place we used to order from. He caught a cab just past the corner there. I am trying to follow where it went, but it got a lot more difficult. You know how hard it is to find one taxi up on St. Mary’s on a busy day? I’m enhancing the visual images of the passengers, but I have to do it one at a time, it will take...”

“Okay, I know you can do it,” Jack said. “I have complete faith in you.” Ianto smiled. No matter how hard they appeared, that kind of praise from their Captain was enough to convince them they could fly off the Millennium Center if he would ask them.

“How sweet.  What's next? Group hugs and sing songs or have you finally decided to take me up on that orgy?” That voice was also familiar, if unwelcome.

“Busy right now John.  Why don’t you take yourself off back to bed like a good boy?” Jack said, his voice instantly tight. They were far too busy to add this complication to the lot.

“You going to come tuck me in? Or maybe you could send your little secretary, he’s still quite tasty.” John said. Ianto wondered exactly how it was possible that he could hear the leer.

“Not now, John,” Jack said with that hard voice that everyone, even John, knew not to question. “Why don’t you get back to bed?”

“I’m fine. I’m tired of that bloody bed.”

“I’ve never known you to be sick of a bed of any sort,” Jack said, trying to lighten up.

“But this one is empty and none of your little playmates seem to want to play.”

“Not likely,” Chris said. “You need to be off back to bed.”

“Goddess no, I’m bored, please…” His tone was almost desperate and Ianto could feel just a little sorry for him. In some ways, John was much like Jack, completely unable to just rest. He wasn’t all that keen on it himself.

“All right,” Jack capitulated. “Grab a workstation. Patrick, send him that CCTV footage, he’s always been good with faces. But you will stay sitting at the desk, keep your mouth shut and your hands to yourself, understand? Chris, if he so much as looks like he is tiring himself…”

“I’ll have him back in bed before he realizes the chair isn’t still under him,” she said. He wished he could see the look on their faces. Maybe it was time to go back upstairs, he thought, having double checked all the files and secured the ones with missing materials. He piled the files neatly, closed the laptop in preparation for a return upstairs, and began putting the rest of the files away, listening to the background chatter from above in his ear.

“Jack, I’ve got him on camera,” Tish called excitedly. “He’s down on the corner, next to the kebab shop.”

“Okay, everyone, act normally.” There was a laugh and some indistinct comment before he heard Jack again. “Okay, as normally as any of you ever act. Jake, I want you up in the tourist office, I don’t want Tish alone.”

“Jack,” she objected.

“He can go into Ianto’s office. I’m not exactly expecting gun play, but I’m not leaving you by yourself. I don’t want to explain it to your mother if something happens.” Ianto smiled at that, none of them wanted to incur the wrath of Francine Jones.

“Wait, he’s stopped, pulling out his phone… now he’s looking up. Jack I think he knows something, he’s turning around, heading down the alley.”

“Okay, Patrick, do you have him on camera? Jake, with me, let's go see if we can bring the prodigal scientist in,” Jack called. “Tish, close up the shop. If he knows we’re on to him, I don’t want him trying to come back in that way.” The rest was all orders. Ianto left his comm on the main channel to keep the traffic clear. As much as he would love to be part of the chase, he knew there was no way he could get up there in time, and besides, there would be more to do when they brought him back. Ianto had a brief but pleasant thought of housing the obnoxious man next to Janet; that should make his evening. With that thought to keep him company, he finished going through the files and double checked the contents before putting them away.

   
“We’ve lost him, Jack. Hang on, while I look at the other cameras.” Patrick was still directing the pursuit when Ianto came in. He put the laptop down on one of the many piles, one that looked somewhat stable. The Irishman nodded at him and returned to his cameras. He dropped the files off at his desk and went to make coffee. It was obviously going to be a long afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Sorry there was nothing yesterday but Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool only comes around once a year, and I had to indulge my yarn addiction. PLease, keep reading and commenting.


	10. Lost

The two of them came back discouraged and not a little dirty. “Jack, what?” Ianto started taking his coat from him and looked with distaste at the cuffs of his trousers and the greasy smear down the back of the coat. Jake was not looking any better and smelled like he had gone for a roll in the rubbish tip. He excused himself almost immediately, pausing only to take his coffee with him.

“Weevil,” Jack said simply. “That alley where we lost him obviously has a problem with its bins; we turned the corner and the only thing there besides about three months of garbage, was a very upset weevil who was as surprised and delighted to see us as we were to see him. He pitched Jake into one of the bins.”

“Where is it? Do we need to do a retrieval?” Ianto asked, sorting out when he was going to clean Jack’s coat.

“No, he ducked into the sewer while I was helping Jake out of the bin. I don’t think he is going to be heading up any time soon though. He was pretty young. I think we scared him back underground for a while. Now, Patrick, I need you off the CCTV and on that laptop; when Jake comes back, get him on the footage. He might have a good idea about how Tarleton got out of that alley. John, if you are still feeling up to it, we have more footage; let’s see where he has been.” The older time agent just nodded before returning to screen along with some popcorn he had managed to scrounge up. With everyone settled down to work, he motioned for Ianto to join him in the office. They still had a phone call with UNIT to get through.

With the door closed behind them, Ianto put through the call. “Captain Harkness for Brigadier Bambera,” he announced to the operator, listening to the clicks as they were transferred to her adjutant and then put through. On Jack’s signal he put the speakerphone on and sat back to wait.

“Win,” Jack said when the pleasantries were finished. “We have a serious problem down here and I hope it’s nothing to do with your people. Not that I don’t trust you, but not everyone at UNIT has or wants a good working relationship with us. I wouldn’t have found it myself so soon but my archivist is very thorough.” He gave Ianto a wink and a smile.

“Your archivist?” she asked before he could start again. “I thought you lost your archivist, unless you have more than one down there. Or so Dr. Tarleton told me when he called about extending his stay. I thought you would be ready to ship him back in a bag by now.”

“That’s interesting. Win, he’s been up to no good here and I’m pretty sure it isn’t under your orders.”

“Too bloody right, it isn’t. Tell me,” she ordered, her voice every decibel the stern officer that he would expect to rise so far up the UNIT ranks.

With some assistance from Ianto, Jack was able to bring her up to speed quickly. He finished and waited as she could be heard barking orders to the other person in the room, sending him scurrying to check their system as well.

“Jack, I’m so sorry. I meant to ring and ask you if it was all right but we have some new testing going on and I just got distracted. Besides, I admit I was glad to see the back of him. He was driving several of my people to distraction. He has only been here for six months before he asked to come down there with this new Weevil thing. It made sense; you have the weevils, after all.”

“Yes we do, and Win, don’t apologize. If Ianto hadn’t been so precise and careful, we might not have found out ourselves, at least not for some time.”

“And Ianto, you would be the famous Mr. Jones that Jack has been talking to me about for years?” There was kindness and just a hint of teasing in her tone.

“I would assume so, Ma’am,” he said quietly, recognizing that they were on personal time until she got answers on her end as well. “After all, I am the only Mr. Jones that has been at Torchwood in some time.”

“Polite, too, don’t know how you put up with him.”

“Practice Ma’am, patience and practice.” She laughed and Jack gave him an exaggeratedly wounded look.

“That will be enough disrespect in the ranks.  See what you have started Win?”

“Me?” she said. “Do I need to remind you about a certain weekend? You, Ancylen, a pair of swords… need I go on?”

“Please do,” Ianto said.

“No,” Jack started at the same time. “No, that’s all right, I don’t think we need to go into that little episode.” Ianto looked at him, one eyebrow raised in question.

“Yes, well, just remember, next time you get my husband arrested, I’ll leave you there.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Jack said, with both respect and affection.

 _One day I need to ask him more about that,_ Ianto thought as a commotion on the other end brought the friendly reminiscences to a halt. Jack’s face went serious as bits of words and phrases came through the open line.

“Jack, we need to meet. It looks like there is stuff missing here as well. I need to order a full audit and contact the other bases where he has been working. Bloody hell, and I thought I just didn’t like the bloke.”

“I don’t blame you, Win, but I can’t get away right now. As far as we know he is still in the city, I have people working on finding him. Plus I have another little situation,” he said, looking out the window at John Hart, who had found a way to lounge in an office chair.

“No, not at all, I’ll come to you, but I need to get a full picture of what is missing here. I will send you some troops to help in the search.”

“Not necessary, troops on the street may cause him to bolt, and I don’t have the resources or the time to help them get their bearings here.”

“Ok, if you won’t take troops, how about if I can scare you up a couple local boys, send them plain clothes just to give you a few more hands?”

“All right,” Jack agreed. Ianto could see he was reluctant; they didn’t know if Tarleton had anyone working with him, and overall, except for a few personal friends, Jack was cautious about UNIT. “But keep them quiet, no uniforms, nothing that could tag them as military. And make sure they have no connection to Tarleton.”

“Done, I will be down… day after tomorrow? I’ll call you with what I find out, can you tell me what he got down there?”

“You know I can’t tell you that, not exactly. But if I were searching through your files, I would look under the keywords mind control devices, emotional inhibitor, or anything similar, that and Weevils. We are going to do a full audit here as well, and you and I can compare notes in person.”

Jack wrapped up the call in short order and turned to Ianto. “I’m sorry to do this to you, but…”

“I know, a full audit, all the computer files he has been in and a look through the ones that he might have found.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said, moving to lay a hand on his lover’s shoulder. “I was looking forward to taking you home tonight.” Ianto didn’t say anything. He knew as much as they both wanted to go back to their flat and forget everything else for a bit that Jack would never have left the Hub, not while there was still the question of John Hart and what had happened to him. They were already on alert, and while it could have come at a worse time, he couldn’t think how much worse.

“We will get home,” he said. “It just might take a little longer.” He leaned up and kissed Jack, enjoying the warmth of his mouth, that special taste that combined coffee and a hint of lunchtime spice with the unique flavor that was Jack. All too soon he broke away. “Soonest started, soonest finished.”

“Have Tish lock down the tourist office for the day to help you. She can easily look through files without a problem.” Ianto nodded, already arranging the order in his mind.

“What about you?” he asked.

“I’m going to take Gwen and see what we can find in Tarleton’s flat. I had Andy put a couple PCs on the door in case he came back, but it’s time to see if we can find what he’s hiding.”  
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who is reading. Please, comment, it helps. So now we are going to be branching out. If you aren't familiar with classic series Doctor Who, Brigadier Win Bambera (and her husband, who is a knight of the roundtable from another dimension) comes from the Seventh Doctor episode, Battlefield. Yes, I'm old. :) Please read, review and all that lovely stuff.


	11. Attack

Unfortunately, Jack’s simple plan for the afternoon was crashed abruptly by another weevil incident, a confrontation between a family of weevils this time, and city workers when a main break forced them into close proximity ( _what is it with the Weevils today, something happening in the sewers? someone asked_ ). It had taken the entire team excepting Tish, and John Hart, who had begged to come but backed down when Chris threatened to put the bullet back where she found it slowly, by hand, and without anesthesia if he continued.

When it was over, the whole brood was safely transported back to the Hub and were at least momentarily sleeping it off in a secure storage room deep in the basement while Ianto tried to figure out what to do with them. The whole family was too big for one cell, but separating them was not an option, as they had learned on a previous attempt. Since they had not attacked anyone until the workers had attacked them, he was just as leave to release them back into the sewer but in the area attached to the lower Hub where they could be kept track of. Ianto was still contemplating that as he wrote up the report. Everyone had come through mostly unscathed, save for a couple of bruises, and a gashed arm, Thomas’s, as he tried to separate a young weevil from one of the workers who was trying to club him with a shovel. Patrick had also managed a baby weevil bite, as he would try to pick up the little one before it was properly sedated.

Now, after clean up, replacing yet another shirt Jack had lost in the melee, and organizing dinner for those that remained, he was seeing his lover off again, this time with Patrick in tow. “Take two, checking Tarleton’s flat,” Jack joked as he headed out, the young Irishman carrying a case full of electronic gear. Everyone else had pushed along home, save Chris who was still watching her patient, and John who was trying everyone’s patience. Ianto was free to return to checking the files in the archives in peace. He reset all the monitors to the archive computers and opened the comms, Jack and Patrick’s voices keeping him company.

“Okay, Andy's boys say no one has been in or out since they got here, so the place should be clear,” Jack said. “Open it up, Patrick.” Ianto tried to resist laughing as he sorted through the papers Tarleton had left, stacking the papers and organizing the files they had been taken from. Jack did so enjoy breaking down doors, but he had been teaching Patrick to pick locks, and the lad was looking forward to trying his skills. Ianto let the banter between the two fade into the back ground while he worked his way through what he had found. The more he looked, the less he liked his conclusions.

“Okay, there we are,” Ianto heard Patrick over the comm.

“Then start with the scans?” That was Jack. Ianto smiled to himself. There was just the hint of a mischievous smirk in Jack’s voice and in his mind’s eye he could see his lover stroll through the flat in search for anything unusual or suspicious.

“Nothing so far… Oh! Wait! Jack?” Patrick said a few moments later.

“Yeah, what did you find?”

“I’m not sure… Wait…”

One more file. Ianto scanned it with experienced but slightly tiring eyes. Something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t quite place it. These documents didn’t correspond with any of the files he had seen so far, and he didn’t like it. He tapped at his earpiece. “Jack?”

“Yeah, Ianto! What’s up?”

“Did you find anything yet?”

“Probably. Patrick’s checking on it right now. How about you? Are the files in order or will I have to comfort you later? A little music, maybe some naked hide and seek?” Ianto could not bite back his chuckle.

“Radio discipline, sir,” he scolded, giving his voice an extra stern touch. “And no Hub games with Captain Hart in residence.”

“Awwww,” he said disappointed. “I see, maybe something else.  At home maybe?” Jack pouted. “I’m game if you are.”

“Jack…” he said, warning note in his voice.

“Fine, at home, later, and you choose the game,” he said, before responding to Patrick. “What is that?”

The urgency of Jack’s voice brought Ianto up sharply. “Patrick! Out.  Now.  This place is rigged…” There was a sudden babble and a loud *whump*.

Whatever Jack wanted to answer was blown from his lips by the thunder of an explosion. “Jack?!” Ianto screamed. There was no response and panic gripped the Welshman’s heart. Patrick was not answering either. Ianto called out over the comm, begging for either of them to answer him, even as he alerted the emergency services. He knew Jack would be fine, no matter what, but it didn’t stop him from feeling as if his heart was going to stop every time the man he loved was out there alone and possibly dying. Then there was Patrick, a good lad, well, not a lad any more. He had been with them for over ten years and the thought of losing anyone on the team was like a boulder in Ianto’s throat. Despite the danger of their job, Jack was good at keeping them alive, and losing one tore at them all.

“Jack, Patrick, come in please… Jack,” he called. “Chris?! Are you still up there? Are you monitoring?” Ianto called out for their doctor. “Chris?” Silence met him as the comm seemed to have gone dead. Repeatedly Ianto tapped at his earpiece, but it made no difference. The connection was gone. Turning to the computer system he tapped a few keys, trying to reestablish the connection. “What the…” The lights went out. Lockdown. He reached carefully into his desk for the torch he kept there in case of difficulty with the emergency lights. One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three…The emergency lighting came on as expected. Now he just had to get upstairs, find out what had triggered the lockdown, and try not to worry about what happened to Jack and Patrick… Easy, that. He opened the door cautiously, easing his way out into the hall. He had only made it a couple of steps down the hall when stars exploded behind his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the reading. Please comment, it helps me keep going.


	12. Attack at the Hub

The whisper of voices and the pounding of his head brought Ianto back to consciousness. After all these years in Torchwood, he had learned to check injuries before he started to move. Last thing he remembered was checking on the lockdown. It felt like the Nationals were going on inside his skull. He was no longer lying on the concrete floor and his arms were secured behind his back. Ianto shifted a little, trying to sort out where he was and who had him.

Suddenly his memory returned. Jack! He almost jerked up, but controlled himself with great effort. Jack would be all right; he knew that. He’d take care of Patrick. Ianto couldn’t worry about that now, he needed to get all the information he could. The rest would take care of itself. With effort, he pushed thoughts of his lover lying bleeding somewhere away, and tried to make sense of what was going on around him. He focused, ignoring the pain and letting the sound of their voices come in clearly. There were at least two, no, three voices; one, the familiar posh tones of Dr. Tarleton, the others were harder, one a northerner, the other enough like Owen to still cause a little flicker of pain.

“I will get this, go deal with the live subjects. Make sure you get all of them.  Well, almost all; you can leave the one in the first cell, she is too old. And hurry, we do not have a lot of time.”

“What’s there to worry about? Thought that little firebomb of yours took care of that poncey captain o’ theirs; the rest have gone, save the doc and the patient.”

“Never underestimate Jack Harkness. He has been around a long time, survived both wars, and traveled with the Doctor. I would have him, if I thought there was a good way of taking him.” He heard footsteps as one of the men left, while he tried to figure out what they were up to.

“Tha’s not even possible. Besides, he’s just a…”

“Don’t let your prejudices make you sound like even more of a fool than you do already. And check to see if the prisoner is awake yet. I would like to ask him a few questions.”

Ianto heard the footsteps and then his hair was yanked suddenly. He opened his eyes to glare coldly at the men who had invaded his domain, his home. “Where is Jack?” he asked, his voice managing harsh and cold just barely. Considering the pain he was in, he was thankful that it wasn’t worse.

“Ah, the ever faithful Ianto, completely devoted to your Captain. Or is it concern for your lover? Which is it?”

“Both,” he said flatly.

“Ah, boy, you know he would sacrifice you in a moment, but your relationship is not why we are having this little chat. How long will it take Captain Jack to come back from an explosion, huh?”

“I really can’t stay,” he said. He knew what to expect so he wasn’t surprised when the other man’s large hand filled his vision. The blow rattled his already battered head, and the pounding was heading for World Cup status, when the next one came in.

“Enough, I need him still conscious. Now, shall we try that question again?”

“I told you, I can’t say."  He watched the man moving in on him, but the doctor restrained him. Ianto knew he needed to drag this out, give Jack time to wake up and get back. If his PDA wasn’t crushed in the blast he would know about the lockdown, if his comm was working at all, he would know about the jamming. Either way, he would be coming, and all Ianto had to do was wait and hope that Chris was safe upstairs with John Hart, or as close as possible.

“All right then, let us start with something simpler. Where is your young doctor?”

“Upstairs,” he said, praying what he said was true. If he was lucky, she and Hart were both asleep and would not try to come down. He was pretty sure they had come in from one of the underground entrances, therefore the others should be safe. Besides, Chris could take care of herself, and no matter how much he disliked John Hart, the man was more than capable of taking care of the two of them.

“Upstairs where, and doing what? Answer quickly, my friend is getting impatient,” he said.

“She is probably sleeping, it was a long night,” he said quickly. There were other ways of dragging it out. Another blow, Ianto spit blood out onto the floor, careful to miss his suit.

“Now, now, perhaps he is correct. What about the other man, Captain Hart, was it? Old friend of handsome Jack, isn’t he? What is his condition?”

Ianto took a careful breath glad that Tarleton had been too busy with his own work, to pay attention to what was going on in the Hub. “Captain Hart is recovering from major surgery, as you well know. He has been sedated on and off. I would imagine, considering the time, that Chris gave him some painkillers and he’s sleeping, though I haven’t checked on him myself.”

“Yes, you would not want to get too close to the ex, now would you? Now, since your answers seem sincere, let us move on. Where are the rest of the documents that you took from my bag and where is my laptop?” the doctor said, leaning close enough for Ianto to smell his cologne.

“The documents are back where they belong,” he said, giving the man a cold look. “The laptop is locked up in the safe.”

“The documents belong with someone who can use them, exploit their potential. Torchwood One almost had the right idea, but not quite, the same with UNIT. None of you know what you have, what can be done with it. But we do, and we will, and then there will be no more need for any of you. When we are finished we will change the world.” Ianto rolled his eyes. This kind of madness is what had brought about the fall of Torchwood One and the death of his Lisa. “Now, the code to the safe?” he asked, stepping back and allowing the muscle man to step back close to him.

Ianto glared. “I don’t know it,” he said. There was no way he was going to give the code, no way he was going let them into the main part of the Hub. He would stop it here, no matter what.

“Now why would I believe that? You are the one sharing Captain Jack’s bed, and anywhere else he chooses, if the rumors are to be believed. He trusts you as much as he trusts anyone.”

“Yes, but I can’t open the safe, only Jack can do that.”

“You want me to help him remember?” The man leaned, in allowing Ianto to get the first good look at him. His voice may have reminded him of Owen, but there the resemblance ended. Where Owen had been thin and wiry, this man looked like he could have taken on the whole Cardiff rugby squad by himself. He was ginger, with a military cut to hide the fact that his hairline was in full retreat. An ugly scar across one cheek led him to believe that this was far from the first dirty work he had done in his life. Ianto closed his eyes and said a quick prayer to a god that he wasn’t sure he believed in that Jack would be here soon, or at least forgive him.

“Stay away from his head, we need him conscious and lucid.” With that Tarleton turned on his aristocratic heel and strode off, presumably for the documents he wanted. Ianto didn’t have time to worry as the blows started to rain down, surgically precise, on ribs and chest. After the third blow, Ianto stopped counting and settled for just maintaining consciousness.

“Think you can remember now?” he said, getting into his face. Ianto started to open his mouth, to make some comment about the bruiser’s breath when the lights went out.

He heard the door bang and saw the pinpricks of torchlight in the dark through swollen eyes. “We need to get out, now.” The voice was Tarleton’s. He heard murmurs, from the hall but couldn’t really make them out. His head was swimming and the pain in his ribs had joined with the one in his head to make him feel like a building had fallen on him. No, he corrected himself, the last time a building fell on him he had dislocated his shoulder and his head didn’t hurt nearly as bad. The chair was digging into his arms, and his hands were starting to go to sleep, when he decided that they had gone. “Time to change the locks, again," he said to the empty room. The emergency lights never went off on their own, so either Jack was back, or John and Chris had sorted out that something was wrong or both. Now all he had to do was wait.

Ianto lost track of time, or possibly blacked out for just a moment. The lights had come on, first the emergency lights, then they flickered and he heard the familiar sound of the Hub coming back to life. “Please, come and find me,” he thought hard. It seemed like he had been there forever. His hands were numb, his eyes swollen nearly shut, and his mouth tasted of the copper of blood. There was a sound, footsteps in the corridor, and before he could open his mouth to say a word they were on him.

“Ianto, we’ve got you,” Chris said, reaching out for him. He looked through swollen, crusted eyes to see the white blond pixie, and a vague shape, armed, that must be John Hart. Not the rescue he wanted, but beggars can’t be choosers. “Help me get him free, now!” The doctor ordered.

“Who was it? Where did they go?” The man asked, as he slipped behind him and slit the tape binding his wrists together and ripped it free. Ianto howled with renewed pain as the hairs on his wrists were ripped away with the tape. “Easy, Eyecandy.” He held him up in the chair while Chris opened her jump bag.

“I’ve got him,” Chris growled sharply. “Keep an eye on…”

“They’re gone,” Ianto said. His voice sounded garbled in his own ears. “What about Jack and Patrick? What happened?”

“Calm down and I’ll tell you, but let me make sure the uninvited visitors locked up behind them,” John said. He was armed and there was a glint in his eye that boded ill for anyone he caught up with. If he didn’t know better, Ianto would have thought John was getting revenge, but he knew that it was more stir craziness than care… or perhaps it was his concern for Jack; regardless, the other man took off out the door, gun drawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all, as usual for the read. Please use the review feature, it really helps.


	13. After the attack

“We were worried,” Chris muttered, as she began cleaning his wounds. “When the comm went dead, at first we thought it was the explosion. I was listening in, then nothing, ‘bout drove me mental, I can tell you. I went to check John, figured you would come up straight away. Then the Hub went on lockdown and the internal comm went down. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to get to you with the doors sealed… John got through to Jack, using that thing… the leather thing. I swear neither of them take them off, I tried before surgery, but Jack wouldn’t allow it…” Ianto listened to her run on, his mind focusing on the one important thing she had said, Jack… he was alive. The thought brought a balloon of elation, popped a moment later as he remembered that Jack wasn’t the only one out there. 

“Patrick?” he asked, breaking into the stream of words. 

“Fine, fine, except for cuts and scrapes, apparently Jack literally threw him out the window to get away from the blast. We knew there had to be someone here, so I armed psycho boy and off we came. Jack was so worried, he wanted to rush back, but I told him we had it in hand. Not that he listens, he never listens to anyone, save you, sometimes…” 

“They’re gone,” John said, coming back into the room. “Found their way through one of the lower levels, I froze the lock; they won’t be getting back in that way. You really should secure those back doors. Seems to me, I got in that way once myself. Now, did you know our uninvited guests?” 

“Tarleton, and he brought a couple of yobs with him. It’s worse than we thought, he isn’t…” He wasn’t sure where or how he put the pieces together. “John, check the cells, and the storage rooms, please, now, hurry.” Chris held him in the chair as he tried to rise. 

“No, you stay right there till I get a good look at you. Be buggered if I’m going to return you to Jack in any more pieces than necessary. I’m going to need to scan those ribs when we get you topside, but I want to strap you up first so you don’t do more damage.” 

“You were right, Eyecandy,” John said coming back into the room with a small bundle wrapped in some dirty towels held carefully away from his body. “They got the whole lot, save this little one I found flung in the corner. Oh, and Janet, she is still in her cell.” 

Ianto remembered what Tarleton had said, the old one. Janet was certainly that. Not that they had a good idea how old she was, or even what the life expectancy of a weevil was. Janet had been here almost as long as he had, seemed content enough and except for the fight club incident, was relatively little trouble. He shook his head in shock, trying to piece it together. “What…” he started. 

“Sort it later, meanwhile tell me what to do with this thing before it decides to take my hand off,” John said, with a bit of distress. The bundle was wiggling a lot more, and he looked like he was having trouble holding on to it without putting any more of himself in harms way than necessary. 

“Give it to me,” Chris said, standing up. 

“No,” Ianto said. His head was a little fuzzy still, but at least it seemed to be clearing. “Take it and give it to Janet.” They both looked at him as if he was concussed. “It won’t be the first time we have had her serve as foster mother.” Chris nodded and John disappeared again, taking the now squalling bundle with him. “Where are Jack and Patrick, and where is my comm?” 

“Your comm is over on the floor in pieces, and they’re cleaning up. I told him to stay and sort it. The last thing I need is Jack to see you before we get you cleaned up. He sees you like this and the mess will make a football riot seem like a Sunday supper at my gran's. Now we just need to get you upstairs…” she said as John came back in, footloose and weevil free. 

With the little one settled in Janet’s cell, and Ianto’s ribs wrapped up, they helped him back up to the autopsy suite. The trip seemed like it took forever, and by the time Ianto got up there, he was sweating and shaking. It didn’t take much convincing to get him settled on the autopsy table. “Do you want to hear the good news or bad?” Chris said as she put down the Bekkeran scanner. 

“I could use some good news right about now,” Ianto said glumly. She had given him no painkillers and he was pretty sure he knew how Owen had felt in that fight cage after going two rounds with a weevil. 

“The good news is your ribs aren’t broken, merely bruised. The bad news is you have a mild concussion, so we are going to have to keep checking you for brain damage.” 

“He’s stayed with Jack this long. I think you are too late,” John drawled from the railing where he was leaning indolently, trying to look careless and sexy. 

“Five years in a time loop,” Ianto reminded him. “Is that all? There’s a lot of clean up to…” 

“No clean up. You are for bed, straight away.” He tried to argue, to resist, but she had given him a painkiller and he was feeling a little sleepy. 

“Come on, Eyecandy, I have always wanted to take you to bed.” Ianto tried to protest but nothing came out. “Unfortunately this was not what I had planned.” With John’s voice ringing in his ears, he felt his pillow come up to meet him and remembered no more.

“Ianto, Ianto.” He came back to consciousness with the sound of his name being shouted somewhere distant. It took a minute for him to get his bearings. The muffled shouting had stopped, and he realized that someone must have stopped Jack, or at least slowed him down. His eyes opened with a little difficulty and he removed the compress that someone must have put on him after he stopped thinking. The room was dark save for a low light on the other side of the screen and by its dim glow, Ianto sat up carefully. There was a bottle of water by the bedside and he took a quick sip to clear his throat before pulling himself carefully to his feet. The fact that he was in bed naked when the last thing he remembered was John Hart was worrying, but he decided that he wasn’t going to think about that now…or ever. He didn’t know, and he didn’t want to know. 

A pair of clean bags from the drawer and a tee shirt, topped with an open shirt to keep the chill of the base at bay, and he was as ready to join the rest as he was getting. Ianto was fairly certain they were holding Jack at bay and he didn’t want the older man to worry any more than he already would be. Jack took each injury, each incursion, both personally and professionally, adding to the load of guilt that Ianto tried so hard to relieve. Now, after his illness and finally being cleared for field duty, he got hurt inside the base. He knew that the sooner he reassured Jack that he was fine, that there was no way he could have done anything, the better it would be for everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And a little more to keep you all entertained.


	14. Injuries

Ianto pulled open the door and followed the furious but muffled argument into autopsy. As he entered the viewing area above, he saw Jack struggling against the restraining hands of Thomas and John Hart. Chris was trying to calm him, but her words were not making much of an impression. “I will catch him, and then I’m…” He broke off as he caught sight of Ianto coming through the arch. Thomas and John immediately let him go and he was up the stairs in seconds, reaching for the younger man before pulling away, the fear of hurting his lover clear on his face.

Reaching out, Ianto pulled Jack to him, letting himself be held as Jack tried to absorb him into his comforting embrace. “I’m all right, Jack,” he whispered into his lover’s ear, knowing that later there would be time for the two of them to comfort each other, but now was not that time.

“Are you sure? Chris…”

“I’ve already been over him with a bloody magnifier, Jack,” she shot back sharply.

“We need to change the locks again,” Ianto said dryly. The older man met his eyes, trying to see what he was hiding, but he met his eyes easily. “Really, Jack, it looks worse than it is. I promise,” he said, pressing his lips gently against the older man’s. “I’ll show you later.”

“Can we get back to work before I have to treat everyone for diabetic shock?” Chris said sweetly from the floor.

“I could stand to hear some more, possibly with visual aids and diagrams?” drawled John Hart from where he leaned against an equipment tray. “What?” he said to the dark stares around him. “I’m injured.  I need to have something to keep my…” he shut down as Jack growled at him from above.

“That’s enough of that. Now, we have some clues about what information they took, UNIT should have an inventory of what is missing from them as well. We have some ideas, but I called a special consultant to come down and give us a hand.”

“Who?” Chris asked.

“Doctor Luke Smith, he’s an old friend of Torchwood and of UNIT, does consulting work for both of us now and again. He also helps with some unofficial diplomatic work, among other things. He and his wife will be traveling down from London tomorrow.”

“I’ll book them in at the St. David,” Ianto said, smiling, glad he could be of some use. Disentangling himself reluctantly from Jack’s embrace, he wandered off to deal with the reservations while his lover explained about Luke. He was also looking forward to seeing Luke and his wife. He hadn’t seen them since he had gone into cryo, though he had talked to them a time or two, and he had seen Sarah Jane when they were still up in London. The time had just never been right. As he settled at his desk to make the arrangements he thought of all the things he had missed, the birthdays, weddings and anniversaries, even the funerals, sometimes he wondered if he had made a mistake.

Then he looked at Jack and that was all it took to remind him of why he had done it. Jack, Gwen, Martha, Rhys, the children, all of them had made a family and he didn’t want to miss any of that, but when the choice became missing a few years or leaving them that much sooner, it had been no contest. They were his family. His father had died while he was at school, his mother a year after the incident with the Daleks. At least she had lived long enough for him to spend some time with her, to explain his life a little. He had even introduced her to Jack. It hadn’t been easy, but she had accepted it, and Jack.

It was after her death that the rest had fallen apart. He had never been keen on his sister’s husband but he put up with him for Rhi and the kids. After his mother’s death, he had been devastated, but Jack had been there for him. A couple months later he had stopped by to drop off birthday presents for his niece and nephew. His brother in law had thrown him out of the house, calling him vile names in front of the children until he had left to prevent them being any more upset. His sister had met him for lunch a week later. She told him that she couldn’t take sides, for the children’s sake. He had been disappointed, Jack had been furious, but in the end he let her go… Ianto knew that it would be better, in the end, at least he thought he had known. It still hurt though.

She had died in a motorway accident a year later. Ianto tried again then to make it up, but the rat bastard hadn’t been interested, in fact he had been worse. It was then that Ianto had walked away, crying himself to sleep in Jack’s arms. He still kept track of them though, a little computer tracking now and again. It was all that he could do. Dragging himself away from those thoughts, he turned to the more pleasant task of setting up a hotel room for two of their favorite people.

Luke and Maria had been close friends at school, and sweethearts when Maria had returned from a brief sojourn to America with her father. They still lived in the old house on Bannerman Road, keeping up with the tasks that his mother had begun so long ago. Sarah Jane had retired to the house her aunt had left her in the country with K-9 for company, writing her memoirs, though with the names changed and under the guise of science fiction. Still sprightly though she was in her seventies, Ianto loved the old woman dearly. He made a note to see about going to visit her when this mess was over.

When he returned to the autopsy suite, Jack was just finishing his explanation. “So, they will be here tomorrow and meanwhile, you all should head home or at least get some sleep. I am going to take this beautiful young man back to bed,” he said, draping an arm gently over Ianto’s shoulders.

“Sorry about our plans,” he said, as they turned to leave the room.

“There will be other nights,” Jack said. “Tonight I will take care of you. Tomorrow… Well, we can work something out. We still have those cuffs,” he said with a smile.

“Jack, leaving aside that I don’t want to know about your sex life, there will be no tying up my patient. Keep your libido in check for once.”

“Who said he was the one who would be wearing the cuffs?” he said over his shoulder, not even bothering to look back. Ianto just smiled as he snuggled into his lover’s side, thinking of their bed and a little peace for now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all. Please enjoy the update and do what you need to do, please.


	15. Awakenings

Ianto woke in comfortable darkness surrounded by the familiar warmth of his lover’s arms, that special spicy scent in his nostrils. He moved carefully, still feeling the bruises and the pain from yesterday. While nothing was broken, he was still going to be moving with care today.

“Waking up, sleeping beauty?” Jack whispered gently in his ear.

“Ummmm,” he responded contentedly. “What time is it?” He didn’t really want to move, but things were not going to slow down just so that he could have a lie in.

“Since I don’t suppose I can persuade you to take the day off…” he asked, looking into Ianto’s eyes. The younger man shook his head. “No, I figured. In that case we still have plenty of time.” Before he could ask what his lover meant, Jack was kissing him, slowly. He felt his lips parting beneath the gentle onslaught. Vaguely, it occurred to him that he should be resisting, should get up and start his day… but it was hard to think with Jack kissing him like that, his tongue exploring his mouth, drawing him in. “Now, what am I going to do with you?” Jack asked, pulling back.

Before Ianto could answer, Jack was kissing him again, trailing his hands carefully over his skin, avoiding the bruises from last night's little encounter. “Jack, I can’t,” he said. “It isn’t fair…”

“It isn’t fair that I wasn’t there last night to protect you. But I wasn’t. Let me do this now. Close your eyes, and just feel,” he whispered as he trailed kisses down his neck, stopping to nibble at the tender spot on his collarbone, slowly as he used his other had to draw a tickling line down his chest.

As Jack’s mouth moved lower, Ianto felt a corresponding rise in his body heat. He opened his eyes and reached for Jack but the older man caught his hand and kissed it before lowering it back to the bed. “Shhhh, leave it all to me.”

“Easy for you to say….Sir,” he grumbled, trying to get a rise out of him, then gasped at the warm wetness that closed over his nipple. The soft chuckle that followed made the hairs on his chest stand on end, the brush of air tickling against his hot skin… His stomach muscles fluttered in response as Jack’s big hands stroked down over stomach and hips. They swept over his hips, sliding beneath the waistband of his pants.

Taking a deep shuddering breath, Ianto could not help but squirm beneath the gentle caress. “Jack, please, I want…I.” Ianto’s voice trailed off with a contented sigh as he lost track of what he was thinking, much less what he was trying to say. While he tried desperately to find some kind of sanity under the sensual onslaught of fingers and mouth, Jack managed to remove his lover’s pants, finding more and better places to tease and nibble.

“Now,” Jack said, his voice pure auditory sex. Any shreds of composure he had managed to put together fled as he felt the air pass across the superheated skin. Anticipation, apprehension, whatever he was trying desperately to sort out fled as Jack’s mouth covered him. Ianto tensed up, arching his back, his breath hitching somewhere between the pleasure of his lover’s mouth and the pain from his aching ribs.  At once Jack’s hands came to rest on his hips again, stilling him, holding him down to prevent him from hurting himself.

  “Oooooh!”

 Clawing at the covers beside him, Ianto’s hands clenched and unclenched convulsively, and he pushed his head hard back into the pillow under Jack’s next assault. Exquisite sensation shot through him and he knew well that he would not last very long under the intense attention. Part of him tried to hang on, to stay in that place between for just a moment longer, but Jack was too good, too much for him… The heat rose and pooled in him before he was overwhelmed, letting go of everything. His release was sudden and for a moment the world seemed to slide, only to right itself as Jack kissed slowly and tenderly back up to his mouth.

Thoroughly satisfied, Ianto lay sprawled on the bed, enjoying the final ripples of sensation. Part of him thought he should feel guilty for making Jack do all the work, but when he opened his eyes, all he could see was Jack, pulling him close for a snuggle, looking smug and content. A smirk cracked the captain’s features. “Now how do you feel about leaving the work to me?”

“The mission has been completed successfully… Sir,” Ianto said, trying for matter-of-fact.

Jack laughed… "Gee, you make it sound so much like work," he grumbled teasingly.

"Oh, but I know how much you love your work, Sir.”

“And hard work at that,” Jack whispered as he silenced the younger man with a tender but passionate kiss. They lay there, contented for what could have been a few moments, or could have been an hour. Ianto drifted in warm comfort, trying to find the energy and the desire to move. The last couple of days had been nothing but one long busy blur, and he was still catching up.

“I need to go grab a shower,” Jack said, giving him a kiss. “In fact, why don’t I go get the water started, and you join me? I know how committed you are to saving water.” Jack pulled himself out of the bed with his usual panther’s grace and grabbed his things from the stand.

Ianto stretched carefully, enjoying the view as well as the residual tingling that ran through his body. “All right, do you want me to make coffee first?”

“No, that can wait, I would rather have you in the shower any day,” Jack said, leaning over for a final kiss before he slipped out the door. Ianto gave him a head start before climbing out of the bed. He took a few minutes to tidy up, and make the bed, before throwing on a pair of track bottoms and gathering his own gear. The only problem with their room was the lack of its own en suite. This had not been much of a problem, but had lead to the odd awkward moments for the rest of the men on the team, who had to share the locker room with them. Smiling at the thought of a hot shower with an equally hot Jack waiting for him, he closed the door of their room.

“Hmmmm, I know that scent,” the unfortunately familiar voice drawled from the end of the corridor. John Hart was leaning against the opening from the medical suite, a shark’s grin on his face. He pulled himself off the wall and scented the air like a predator as he walked towards the Welshman. “Mmmmmm,” he said, almost as if he was tasting the air. “You smell of Jack, Eyecandy, Jack and sex.”

“I don’t see how it’s any of your business,” Ianto said, trying not to blush. There was nothing to be embarrassed of, certainly not in front of John Hart.

“Thought you might be a little too injured for any of Jack’s morning aerobics, but I guess not. Of course, there are other ways, Jack always was good with his mouth. Does he still do that thing….”

“I’m fine,” Ianto growled, trying to keep him from seeing how much he was getting to him. “And what’s it to you anyway?”

“Nothing, nothing at all,” John said from just behind his left ear. Ianto was still trying to figure out how he had gotten there and what it would take to get him to go away when he whispered in his ear. “Just I’m a nosy bastard as all, and a celibate one at the moment. Vicarious thrills is all I’m likely to get around here, unless you and Jack want to reconsider my offer.” The ex-time agent’s voice was low and full of all kinds of promises that he knew he would be mad to take him up on.

“Well, if you want my advice…” he said, making his voice equally flirtatious and leaning back into John for just a moment.

“Yes?”

“Go back to your room and I’ll have Jack send along a catalogue, for when you get tired of your own hand.” With a smile, and a cheeky wink, Ianto hurried off down the hall, unable to really bring himself to believe he had just wrong footed Captain John Hart on his own ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are reading this, glad. Please leave a comment, it helps.


	16. Dressing Games

Ianto was smiling happily as he made his way back into the hub with breakfast. It had been a good morning so far, between Jack and his own little contretemps with John Hart, everything was good. Even the weather was cooperating, in at least as much as it wasn’t raining for now. As he descended into the hub, he heard the disturbance and started reevaluating his impression of the day. 

“There is no way you’re going into the field. People may be looking for you; you are recovering from being shot in the back…” 

“I’m fine, always was a fast healer, you know that…” 

“And…” Jack said, pitching his voice over the other man’s with a note of triumph, “You don’t even have any shoes. No way are you going to run through the streets of Cardiff in your stocking feet.” 

“If your little…” The word he used slid off Ianto’s ear but he was fairly sure he didn’t want to know since the next sound he heard was flesh hitting flesh. Ianto closed his eyes, praying for patience, peace, and that they would manage not to destroy the hub in the process. He wanted to run, to try to break it up, but he knew there was no point. As he reached the railing, Jack and John were swinging on each other, both shouting in a language that almost registered, but not quite. It wasn’t as if this was the first dust up the two ex-time agents had got into but this time something was different. Usually they seemed to enjoy it, taunting each other as they threw punches at the other. But this time they were all over each other, this was not taunting, and it was in no language he had ever heard. 

Ianto reached the lower level, dropping his burdens, and moving to separate them as Thomas and Jake came out of the armory with the same goal. The two men were now grappling on the edge of the grating above the water that flowed from the fountain above, and Ianto could just see this ending in tragedy if they didn’t get to them. As he reached out, Chris shouted across the hub. “Oi, you two, break it up. I just finished patching ‘im up.” Everyone turned to her in surprise, even Jack and John, still clutching onto one another as they slid off the grate and into the water. 

It was like a slow motion film, watching them clinging to one another as they fell into the brackish pool. Ianto almost reached them but there was nothing to grab onto. They let go of each other, and Jack got his feet under him, dragging himself up onto the grate again. John followed in silence. As the captain pulled himself up, he cast a chagrinned look at his lover. Ianto could tell that he was ashamed of his actions but he wasn’t going to let him off that easily. Giving him a stern look and gesturing for him to stay in that spot, he turned on his heel and headed for towels. 

When he returned, Chris was fussing over the two of them, alternating between yelling at them and poking them in various places. “Not that I need to worry about you Jack, but I just put this wanker back together, and I’ll not have you damaging my good work. If anyone is going to kill ‘im, it’ll be me that does it,” she said, her accent thickening as she pushed the two of them towards different sides of the hub. 

“Jack,” the blond man said, pulling away from Chris for just a moment. “What I said…I didn’t…You know. I just can’t sit here, it’s not me.” 

Jack just nodded and waved him away as Ianto dropped a towel over his shoulders. Ianto thought it was probably as close as either would ever get to an apology. “We’ll talk about it after breakfast.” 

“Suppose you won’t wanting these boots I picked up this morning when I picked up the dry cleaning then?” Ianto said, as he turned his back on both of them and grabbed the packages. He headed for the boardroom, leaving the two men sitting there with their mouths hanging open. Ianto smiled to himself. This time he got both of them. Maybe today was a good day. 

Ianto set everything out on the table in the boardroom with a satisfied smile. John Hart’s Napoleonic war era officers coat was dry cleaned and mended to near perfection if he did say so himself. Not that he cared himself what the man thought one way or another but he prided himself on doing as good a job as possible. Besides, the coat was as important in its way as Jack’s RAF coat was to him and Ianto understood what the loss of it would mean. He had also managed a couple of pairs of trousers to the specifications of Captain Hart’s old ones, though they were in black and grey rather than that awful brown the man had been wearing since the first time he dropped through the rift on them. Patrick would be glad to get his clothes back, him being the only one narrow enough in the hip to accommodate. They had still been significantly too long, and the tee shirts were made for thinner shoulders than Captain John Hart’s. Ianto had briefly cursed that Owen was no longer around, but raiding storage just for their convenience seemed too much like blasphemy. Of course John Hart had not cared and would have cheerfully walked round the hub naked given anything like an opportunity. 

With everything arranged to his satisfaction, Ianto left to see to the coffee without which the breakfast meeting would get nothing accomplished. He could see Jack coming along the corridor from their room, just finishing the buttons on a clean, dry shirt and he knew that he had just enough time to finish while everyone gathered. 

“Oh, for me?” the ex-time agent said as he saw the hangers at his chair. “Eyecandy, you shouldn’t have,” he said as he looked over the jacket with the same affection that he used for his weapons, or Jack for that matter, in idle moments when he thought no one was looking. 

“Yes he should,” Patrick said, coming through the door. “Need my clothes back, don’t I? Not like my shirts’ll ever fit again properly,” he grumbled as he settled in his chair and accepted his morning cup from Ianto. 

Jack stepped through the door, accepting the cup that Ianto held for him with a vague nod as he looked over the copy of today’s schedule as he sat down in his place. He paid no attention to John or Patrick’s squabbling, too busy trying to sort out all the work that needed to get done. 

“What’re these then?” John asked as he opened the carrier bag with one hand, while stuffing a piece of toast in his mouth. Like Jack, the man enjoyed his food. Also like Jack, he tended to eat like he was starved. 

“Socks and pants,” Ianto said, not looking up. “Had to guess about size and type but they should do.” 

John made some kind of noncommittal noise as he finished his toast and started to strip off. He tossed the shirt towards Patrick’s end of the table with a muffled “thanks for the loan, mate.” 

“It was either that or having you going around in the all together, scaring the dinosaurs,” he said as Jake and Thomas came through the door, both focused on the breakfast before them, followed by Tish and finally Gwen, looking a little flushed.     
“Sorry I’m late, Tosh needed me to sign something up to the school and by the time I’d...” she paused in the middle of her rambling stream as she noticed John Hart rising from his chair, shirtless. “What’s all this then?” 

“Breakfast,” Ianto said, deadpan. 

Watching John Hart rummage through the carrier bags, Ianto couldn’t help but wonder…did Jack compare them? He studied him as he was pulling things out of packages, narrowly missed dropping the new socks in his coffee. He usually avoided looking at the man if he was honest with himself. He didn’t want to think about him, didn’t want to picture him and Jack together, the lithe body pressed against skin as familiar as his own. Taken objectively, John Hart was attractive enough, he supposed, especially considering his (theoretical) age, all lean muscles under pale skin with the odd scar just to make things interesting. 

Not that he would be interested, nor would it be an issue if he was. They were exclusive because it was what Ianto wanted and was comfortable with and while Jack had never chaffed or seemed the least restricted by it, he had never been less than honest either. If Ianto wanted John Hart, all he would have to do was say so. If he wanted Jack with him, then so much the better. As for the other time agent, he had been completely clear that he would gladly take any place in their bed that was on offer. 

Trying to shake these thoughts, he still had to wonder at the differences. He and Jack were of a height and while he was a touch narrower across the shoulders there was not all that much difference in their build. At least nothing that anyone but a tailor would notice without getting far too close. John Hart was a good few inches shorted and lighter. Did he miss the other man? All thoughts went straight out of his head as the subject of his scrutiny started to fiddle with the knot that held the track pants around his narrow hips. 

Not sure what to say to John that wouldn’t escalate the situation and cursing his own failure of planning that left them with a rapidly disrobing guest, Ianto cast a quick glance round the table. Tish and Gwen were busy eating breakfast while Tish told some story about what her daughter had been up to that morning. Jake and Thomas were both buried in their data pads and Patrick was drinking his coffee while his attention was, as usual focused on something flashing across his computer screen. With everyone occupied and Chris not yet there, he did the only thing he could think of. 

“Jack,” he said, dragging his partner’s attention from what he had been doing with a significant glance. The immortal gazed over at his former lover vaguely. 

“That one’s new,” the Captain said, pointing to a thin line on the other man’s shoulder, clearly missing the point. 

“This?” John asked, tracing the line. “Nah, that’s from the bar fight out in Aldebron last time I was out that way. Bloody frontier mentality…I told you about it. This one’s new,” he tugged the pants down lower on his hips as he continued to fight the knot. Ianto noticed that Tish and Gwen had looked up, trying to appear casual about it, while the men studiously ignored the whole thing. 

“Ouch,” Jack commented. The scar was ridged around from below the line of fabric up over the curve of his left hip bone. 

“Yeah, Dvorian female, gorgeous.” 

“Dangerous, aren’t they the ones that like to…” Jack made a gesture that made it completely clear what they did and convinced Ianto once again that he was glad Jack had settled for less dangerous recreational pursuits. 

“Only if you don’t leave fast enough,” the other man told him. Jack looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Yeah, I didn’t quite leave fast enough, but I was feeling a little slow, probably the venom. But she was gorgeous, though, beautiful purple thorax.” 

Jack nodded appreciatively and Ianto was fairly certain this was not what he had meant to draw his attention to. The rest of the room was sitting in silence, not an unusual occurrence when the two men started swapping war stories. They all sat, pretending to pay attention to other things while hanging on every word. But Ianto knew that the knot wouldn’t hold forever. 

“Afraid I’ve got no more scars to compare, they just fade away,” Jack said almost wistfully. “Though there are the temporary ones…” he smiled at Ianto who thought he was long past the age of blushing. 

“Jack,” he said, this time a little more forcefully and an expansive glance around the room where everyone was trying desperately to ignore that end of the table. 

The knot came free and John Hart shoved the track pants down his narrow hips, and stepped free. There was a cocky smile on his face and not the least bit of shame at his nudity. Jack was the only one who wasn’t trying to look away or at least pretend. Ianto was fairly certain that Tish and Gwen both had peeked. Jack just smiled appreciatively at the other man, though it was in no way the first time he had seen it. Nor was it particularly any more or less appreciative than he was of anyone else. 

John reached for the trousers completely unconcerned with his nakedness. “These first,” Jack said, pointing to the black boxer briefs on the table. 

“Nah, you know I…” 

“They’ll keep your… warm. Cardiff can be pretty cold; you might have to stay around.” Whatever the word was, it slid right through Ianto’s hearing much the way his earlier arguments, but he got the context. John just nodded and started to open the package as the doctor walked in. 

“Oi, put some clothes on, not have you taken a chill.” 

“But you must admit, the view’s nice,” he said cheekily as he pulled the pants on. 

“Leave off, I’m just surprised you aren’t up on the table making a show of it.” 

“I could do, if you like,” John said pausing with the trousers over his arm. 

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Jack said. “Remember that undercover job, what was it, Vegas V?” 

“Six, how could I forget? That place was gorgeous. And the tips were good, probably the best assignment ever. Then there were the fringe benefits. That Antarian, you wouldn’t believe the things that Jack and I…” 

“Okay, enough of this trip down amnesia lane, you two. We don’t need to know about you shaking your arse…” John pulled up his trousers as he executed a complicated maneuver that should have been impossible with a wound in his back. It put him on his feet in the center of the conference table, trousers undone and that bedroom smile of his at full beam. He executed a surprisingly graceful turn and stalked down the table toward the doctor, carefully side stepping coffee mugs and breakfast wrappers. 

“Are you sure?” John said, leering down at her, hands on hips. 

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” the doctor said dismissively but Ianto noticed she didn’t turn away. In fact, she sat there looking him straight in the eyes, but there was a little mischievous sparkle and perhaps just a hint of a smile. Ianto could read trouble from here.

“Put it on, put it on,” she chanted with a full smile. John fastened his trousers with exaggerated slowness, eyes locked on hers while he swayed gracefully to music that existed only in his head.

Taking his cue from Chris, Jack grabbed for the carrier bag and one of the tee shirts. “Put it on,” he joined the chant, as he threw it down the table. Ianto rolled his eyes as the rest of them took up the chant, like bloody children, he thought. But considering what the next couple of days/weeks were like to hold, best for them to blow it off now. 

John had plucked the shirt out of the air as he executed a beautiful turn. He blew a kiss down to Jack, and redirected his focus somewhere between Gwen and Patrick. Deciding that he might as well join them, Ianto rose and pulled the white shirt out of the dry cleaner bag and unbuttoned it, just as Patrick thumbed on something darkly sensuous on the sound system. He looked at Jack whose smile was somewhere between amused and wistful. John had gotten the tee shirt on with much teasing and exaggerated turnings. 

 Looking at his watch, Ianto gave them three minutes to finish up. They needed it. Between Tarleton and John’s problems, not to mention the usual rift warnings, weevil hunts and odd aliens, they might as well play while they could. The next time John turned, he tossed the dress shirt at him. If he aimed more for his head than his hands, well it was all down to reflexes anyway.  “First time I’ve ever done a ‘dress tease’,” John said, as he buttoned his cuffs. The music was gone and he slinked down from the table and collapsed back in a chair with a contented smile.   “Could be worse, at least they weren’t throwing food, or rocks,” Jack said. Ianto could almost hear another story from their past coming out but they were interrupted as an alarm sounded, announcing someone banging on the door of the tourist information booth.


	17. Reinforcements

“Bringing up CCTV,” Patrick said immediately, switching from the slightly bewildered smile he had been sporting ever since John blew him a kiss, to serious work. “It’s probably some lost tourist who is too impatient for their own good, though.”  The camera came up on the screen at the end of the table, and all eyes turned towards it.

But it wasn’t a lost tourist. On the screen, a young black man in jeans and a jacket was standing there with a conspicuously large white bakery bag and a cap pulled low, looking directly at the camera. “Oi, Captain, I know you’re watching, how ‘bout you open up and let me in?” The words were low, just loud enough to pick up on the microphone, but the voice was a familiar one.

Jack immediately began to issue orders, “Tish, go up and let him in, and don’t forget to take possession of that bakery bag. Tell him to go around to the garage entrance.” She nodded and hurried off to the elevator. “Ianto, will you go and let him in? It may take a while, he’s being cautious. That’s good; I wouldn’t put it past them to have some kind of surveillance.”   

“Looking now,” Patrick said, typing frantically away at his keyboard. “They must have some kind of eyes on us, as the Americans say. If they are using something like a motion activated camera, then I can try to track the signal.” The young man bent down, almost nose to keys with the computer in front of him, so intent on what he was doing, he had tuned the rest of them out and was having what appeared to be a private conversation in Gaelic with the machine.   

On the screen, the door opened, and Tish waved him in, apologizing politely for taking so long and asking after the price and the receipt as she asked him to just set it on the counter. The door closed behind them, and once inside, Tish gave him his instructions and sent him back out the door, ostentatiously counting his money and stowing it in separate pockets before getting on his bike and riding off.   “Keep him on camera as much as you can, just in case they suspect something. I want to make sure he’s safe,” Jack said to Thomas, while Patrick continued, lost in his own world.

Leaving them to it, Ianto looked at his watch and realized he had just enough time to make a round of coffee before he needed to meet Clyde in the garage.   When he returned with the drinks, they had obviously worked something out. Jake’s legs were sticking out from halfway under an adjoining console, while John Hart was bent practically across Patrick’s shoulders as the two were apparently comparing something between the monitor and his wrist strap, which he had open. Jack was doing something similar, calling out information to Jake, while keeping half an eye on the CCTV. Clyde was making a show of checking another white bag in the carrier basket on the back of the vespa that he had got hold of somehow, though the Ianto couldn’t quite make out where he was, somewhere down Lloyd George, he thought, trying to factor that into the time needed.   Ianto gave out the coffee, paused for Jack to stroke the back of his hand, and headed down to the garage. It looked fairly involved and he would find out what it was all about when he returned with the young man.

 _Not all that young anymore actually,_ he thought, remembering how long it had been since he had seen him in person. That he had managed to get assigned, he assumed he had been assigned, to Cardiff just when his best friends were coming down to help out didn’t particularly surprise him. In fact, if he had been thinking clearly, he would have anticipated it. Now he hurried down to the underground garage to let the young man in as soon as he shook whatever potential surveillance he was under.   

Clyde Langer had come a long way from the mouthy, gawky boy from Houndslow. Perhaps hanging around with Luke Smith and saving the world from aliens growing up led him, Ianto wasn’t sure. Jack would have had him for Torchwood, but UNIT had got there first, and as a bigger organization, the benefits were better. Plus the life expectancy was longer, so off to the military he had gone. He had done surprisingly well, and now at thirty five, he had made Second Lieutenant just before Ianto had gone in for treatment. Ianto wasn’t sure if Jack had anything to do with the fact that he ended up on the staff of Jack’s old friend or possibly Luke’s mother, and he wasn’t about to ask. It was good to see him again and Ianto hoped that there would be a little time to catch up, after they finished with Tarleton; that was the priority and after they broke into the base and attacked him, not to mention the stealing of the weevils, if they were lucky, Jack would only retcon them back to a pre toilet. He ushered the young man through the underground passage into the rest of the Hub.

  “Clyde, how’s the Brig? I thought she was sending me some local boys?” Jack said, reaching out to hug their guest. He had crumbs on his shirt, and Ianto looked around to find the bakery bag that Tish had obviously brought down with her, snagging a croissant for himself, before they were all gone.

  
  “Ehhh, leave off,” Clyde said, brushing Jack off with a laugh. “She’s fine, if you consider spitting nails and chewing the arse off anyone and everyone who sticks a head out, fine. I figure I am safer down here, thanks. Two of my boys will be here in the next day, one is from Grangetown, the other from Newport, so they both know the territory. They’ll come in separately. The Brig suggested that we work out a frequency, set the comms, then I’ll act as liaison.”   

“Sounds good,” Jack said. He looked like he was about to say more, when Patrick jumped up from his chair and grabbed John Hart with a whoop.   

“Got ya’ bloody bastards,” he said as he jumped up and gave the shorter man a hug, before dropping back down to his computer again.

  “Clyde, why don’t you grab a seat, and if you ask nicely, I bet Ianto will make you a coffee as soon as we get this sorted. I am guessing it worked?” he directed the last to the lanky Irishman.

 “Yes…No…sort of.”

  “Okay, not confusing at all then. Can we try again in a language I can understand?”

  “All right, let me try it this way,” the computer genius said, looking for the shortest possible explanation. “We were correct.  Rather than set up separate surveillance, they tapped into the CCTV network, much the way we do. In fact, they were trying to hide their signal under ours.”

  “Okay, with you so far,” Jack said, waving for him to continue, while reaching out for the bakery bag again. Ianto intercepted his hand, and gave him a stern look, while continuing to listen to the tech.

  “We found the signal, and tracked it to the relay, so with the help of Jake and John’s little…” he waved his hand at the other man’s wrist strap. “We managed to get a fix. Now that we know where the relay is from, we can track the signal. If they are as careful as I suspect they are, it will lead to another relay, but now that I know what we are looking for, Jake and I can adapt one of the scanners. Also, John’s strap has the frequency recorded so he can track it as well.”   

“Good, then I can do it as well. Jake, get started on that scanner, Patrick, I need that frequency,” he said as he flipped back the cover. “When you get that scanner done, Patrick I want you to take Thomas and follow the signal.”

 “Jack, it isn’t that simple. The signal is probably not active all the time. They are probably streaming at specific times, with some kind of program to alert them to something particular, say movement. We could get to the relay and have the signal be inactive.”

  “Fine, you and Thomas are going on a stakeout then. I need you to track that signal, that is how we are going to find Dr. Tightass and his minions. Meanwhile, I want a second scan run on the entire hub, top to bottom. The CCTV is one thing, but I wouldn’t put it past him to have more than just that. Sweep for everything we have seen before and everything we haven’t. Ianto, can you find the time to check out the computer system. Run everything, and then when you’re done, run it again. I know we did it last night,” he said, waving away protests from around the Hub. “But as Patrick just pointed out, if they were smart, and we know they are, they would have turned them off while we were still on alert. Ianto?”   

“Certainly, sir, though it may push back your coffee delivery,” he said straightfaced, though there was a twinkle in his eye that Jack was certain to see.

  “I’ll live. This is our home, though, and I hate uninvited guests especially when they start stealing the goodies and abusing the staff. That’s my job, now everyone back to work. Thomas, my office, now.” Jack turned towards his office, leaving the rest of them scurrying like a turned over anthill. “Clyde, you come too,” he said as an afterthought, dropping an arm over the UNIT officer’s shoulders and steering him on, clearly glad for some action.


	18. A little distraction

After he had set the second scan to run, and to rerun at random intervals until they told it otherwise just to make sure, Ianto Jones headed down to the vaults. Jake and Thomas had headed off to the location Patrick had pinpointed, with specific PDA software, and instructions to call in if they needed a change. Clyde had also gone off, to set up his own surveillance on the area. The young man had shown a positive talent for undercover work that had surprised Ianto, but apparently not Jack. Meanwhile Patrick, with the help, willing or not, of John Hart, was checking the Hub from top to bottom for listening devices, bugs of various types, and Jack was on the phone, trying to raise some of his own sources. After more than a hundred years in Cardiff, his lover had sources in places he didn’t even want to think about. Passing food through the slots to the various denizens of the lower levels left Ianto too much time to think.

He tried not to think that Jack was deliberately assigning him jobs that kept him in the Hub, he really didn’t. But ever since he came back, he hadn’t had so much as a weevil hunt. Yes, it made sense for him to handle the internal computer scans, with Patrick and Jake busy recalibrating equipment and trading notes on what they were scanning for. It made perfect sense to send Jake and Thomas out together since, as Jack had said when he had looked at him, the two of them had gone home last night and not been used as a punching bag. It didn’t make him any happier to be stuck in the Hub. So, he went about his normal duties and tried not to think about it. Instead he stood watching Janet and the baby weevil. The little one seemed to have suffered no ill effects from the night before and Janet was, as always, a good foster mother. Janet looked at him and let out a mournful keen. He wondered just what she was thinking and what was happening to the baby’s family, whereever they were. “Don’t worry old girl, Jack will find them,” he said to her quietly as he turned and left the vaults. He had just reached the quiet corridor that ran through the archives that housed various artifacts and was contemplating whether he wanted to feed the fish before he went up, when he heard the familiar scuff of shoes.

Jack looked a little tired, and Ianto was fairly sure he must have been dealing with some of his more regular sources. He always seemed to be a little worn after dealing with official branches of the government, and anything having the word 'Ministry' in the title exhausted him far more than a long chase followed by a double weevil hunt and a night of inventive sex, as he would have every reason to know. Before Ianto could contemplate further, or even say anything, Jack was in front of him. “I was starting to wonder where you had gone.”

“Don’t worry, Jack, I haven’t left my safe little cave,” he said, perhaps more sarcastically than he meant. It was a statement almost worthy of Owen, he thought, but Jack looked wounded. “I had to feed the residents,” he said, hoping that Jack would just let it go. He really should have known better.

“I am not deliberately keeping you off mission, this time,” Jack said, putting both of his large hands on his lover’s shoulders and pressing against him. “Well, actually Chris does have you on light duty, but regardless I want Jake to take the first run at this in case he and Patrick need to tinker with the frequency. Don’t worry, you’ll get your turn sitting in an uncomfortable car with stale coffee and bad takeaway. Unless we get really lucky that is,” Jack said, stepping closer and backing the younger man against the cold stone wall.

“I live for it, sir,” Ianto said with typical wit, trying not to get distracted by Jack so close to him, his pheromones overwhelming him with their familiar scent. “So were you looking for me in general or did you have something for me to do?”

“Actually I was looking for you for something specific. I hadn’t seen you in hours and I need to wash the taste of bureaucrat out of my mouth.” Jack said, seductively.

“Ah, coffee is it,” he said, though his breath caught a little at the sound.

“No, not coffee, Mr. Jones,” he said leaning in for a kiss. “Gods you taste good and you’ve made me an addict, I just can’t get enough,” he whispered against Ianto’s lips.

“I would have thought you did enough ‘tasting’ this morning,” Ianto said, trying to keep himself in work mode. It was hard. When they had returned from London, they had slept for two days. Then Jack had made beautiful and slightly kinky love to him on the open terrace of their new flat while the city slept beneath them. Jack had showed him with kisses and caresses how much he meant, how much he was loved even more than words. It had been one perfect moment.

The next morning he had been a bit tired, and joked that Jack had worn him out. Any other time the immortal would have agreed or offered to tire him further. Instead he had bundled him gently back to bed with an admonition to rest. From there Jack had been gentle and solicitous, and being Jack, he had still been very physical. There were plenty of kisses and cuddles but nothing more, even when he had tried to press the point.

At first he had put it down to stress or that he was trying to catch up with work, but he had begun to feel that while he had no doubt that Jack, the man who had pushed, cajoled, and waited for a decade, the one who held him through the nausea and the misery of his treatments, loved him, that he no longer wanted him as a lover. He began looking for signs, questioning his comings and goings. The more uncomfortable he became, the more Jack treated him like a crystal vessel, likely to shatter at any moment.

Finally in despair, torn between exactly what he had put himself through it all for and desperate to find out what he could do to bring it back, he had confronted his lover. It had been a revelation to discover that Jack had been beating himself up for rushing the younger man. But that was Jack all over, always taking all the responsibility on his own shoulders, a willing Atlas, whether he deserved it or no. He had been certain that Ianto had not been well enough and only humoring him. The misunderstanding had led straight to bed and Jack, as tactile as he was had been making up for lost time ever since.

This was how he found himself, usually the voice of discretion, letting his formidable resistance down in the quiet, empty corridor in the middle of the afternoon on a Wednesday with the world threatening to fall in on them at any moment. “Jack,” he breathed, giving the short name two syllables as he tried to put his passion fogged brain back in order. “Please, we…”

“We don’t know when we’ll have time,” the older man whispered as he sank to the floor in front of him. “I need you.” Those three words sent caution and sense to the wind as he lover’s hand did something very clever and pleasant and he found himself gasping for breath as with one hand he tried to find purchase on the stone behind him, the other twining in the dark hair. Jack was proving yet again that his mouth was clever with more than words. He opened his mouth but the only sounds that emerged were comprehensible only in that way of lovers as the older man continued to ply his quest to completely undo him.

Ianto lost track of where he was, what he was thinking, and just allowed himself to give over to nothing but the feel of Jack’s mouth on him, the slight rasp of stubble against his hip, and the silky hair he twined around his fingers. There was no stopping now, not that he would if he could, it just felt too good. Jack Harkness could do things with his mouth that were probably illegal in parts of this or any other world. Ianto felt the blood rushing from his head and his knees try to give way, and probably would had his lover’s hands on his hips not held him firmly in place as the corridor swam before his eyes. Jack pulled back and smiled up at Ianto, now boneless against the wall. With gentle hands, Jack had begun to pull his lover’s impeccable appearance back together when the applause started.


	19. Questions of a private nature

“Ianto, can I have a word?” Patrick asked, standing nervously at the door to the small kitchen they had put in after the last time the Hub had been remodeled. Considering earlier, he was surprised to see the Irishman anywhere near either him or Jack. Not that he was all that keen to face either of them, not after they had been witness to his and Jack’s earlier…dabbling. Patrick had been distinctly red in the face when John, after applauding their performance, offered to give his own demonstration, especially if the redhead would volunteer as his partner.

“Come on, I can guarantee you will enjoy yourself,” he had said, winking as he turned redder than his hair. “I would volunteer to use Eyecandy over there but I think he is biased. As for you, Jack, you know how good I am.”

Ianto tuned out at that point as he made sure his appearance was up to par, while Jack and John continued their usual innuendo charged banter. With a final parting shot and a warning about work to do, Jack had slid an arm around him and taken the two of them off. Of course Jack wasn’t the least bit embarrassed, but as soon as they were out of John’s sight, he pulled him close, and kissed his forehead. “All right?” he asked.

“Yes, but next time, let's take it behind a door, any door.”

“If you insist. I think you look beautiful when you cum.”

“All well and good, but the only person I want to look beautiful to with me wedding tackle hanging out is you,” he said, probably sharper than he meant it. He could see a little hurt in Jack’s face. “I don’t want to share us with anyone, especially your ex,” he said more kindly. The Captain nodded, and gave him another kiss before heading off for an update from the team in the field and Clyde, who had set up his own observation point.

Now Patrick was here and he wanted to talk. Ianto took a deep breath, let it out, and nodded to the younger man. “Of course, what do you need?” he asked, keeping his tone neutral and work oriented.

“It’s...well…what’s it like?” the young man asked, not meeting his eye.

 _Here it comes,_ Ianto thought, hoping that the other man was asking out of curiosity and not because he was thinking about trying a little 51st century ‘dancing’ as Jack had once called it, himself. He had not failed to notice the interest John had been showing the computer genius, though he was not the only one to have the con man’s attention. Over all he just didn’t want anyone getting hurt, and as far as he was concerned, John Hart was one big ball of hurt. But Patrick was a grown man, and not nearly as young as he was, but to Ianto, everyone was still ten years younger.

"You and Jack, I mean Gwen said something about you having a girlfriend, and you don't…I mean your not like J—like either of those two," he finally finished lamely, with a nod toward the floor of the Hub. Ianto looked over his shoulder and saw John settled back at the monitor with more popcorn and CCTV footage, making comments at Jack who was on the comm system with the field team again. Ianto made a quick decision, gesturing for Patrick to follow him; he went down and put a cup of coffee down near Jack's elbow. The Captain turned and gave him a look and he signaled that he was going downstairs. He nodded, returning to his coordination. John ignored them except for a leer and a handful of popcorn thrown after that Jack told him he would be cleaning up.

He led the younger man down to the archives and took him into what was pretty much his private office. Last night's little contretemps had been cleared up by someone, probably Tish and Chris, and it was more or less back to where he liked it. He motioned Patrick into the wooden chair and pulled his own from behind the desk. "Thought you might like to have this conversation somewhere more private, yeah?" he said, wishing, not for the first time, he hadn't quit smoking long ago. Not that he felt the need, not often anyway, but this was one of those. Patrick just nodded.

"So, now what did you want to ask me?" he said, trying for light and friendly, and knowing he was probably failing.

"It's just, you and Jack…I mean, I never…" he stopped again, looked down and his hands, then pulled a squashed sweetie from his back pocket and opened it, giving the wrapper far more attention than it deserved.

"I don't suppose you've finally decided to take Jack up on any one of his myriad offers, have you?" Ianto said, trying to keep it light. At the same time he was praying that it was just curiosity, even though he knew better, after all, as he told Jack on more than one occasion, he knew everything, and he knew the kind of pressure that Jack or someone like Jack (John, though he didn't like to think about the similarities too much), could bring to bear without trying. John was trying though, there was nothing accidental, joking, or casual about his pursuit of the computer tech and that was with only a little over 24 hours to work on him.

  
"No, I wouldn't…" he said. "Not that there is anything wrong…" Patrick gave up lamely, and Ianto decided to put him out of his misery.

"Good, because despite his offers, I have no desire to find you in my bed.   Nothing personal, you understand," he said with a smile. "What you want to know what it's like to be attracted to someone like Jack? Someone that flirts constantly and has 51st century pheromones that go straight to your head, well, somewhere anyway."  Patrick nodded, looking pathetically grateful that he understood and wouldn't have to explain. _It should be easier,_ he though, _after all these years._ Patrick was younger than he was, from a time where people were much more, what was Jack's expression, flexible, that was it. When Ianto was coming up, people had gotten much better about relationships, gay, straight, they understood that pretty much. But there were still difficulties and the usual drunken yobs that couldn't get it. Patrick's generation though, they were pretty open, more willing to blur the lines, try both sides, just to see or something. It was a little hard for him to get his head around to tell the truth, but he had never wanted another man. He still considered himself predominantly straight if he thought about it, which he didn't, often, never mind that he had been in a closed relationship with a man for the last two decades. "Have you ever been interested in a man before?" he asked, trying to be as gentle as he could.  This was not easy. It hadn't been easy for him and he had no one but Jack to confide in. He and Owen had never been all that close, at least not at the beginning, and by the time they had been closer to friends, well he and Jack were no longer a question. It certainly wasn't something he could have discussed with Tosh or Gwen or his family.

"No, I mean, dere's nothing wrong wit’ it, but…" Patrick was still obviously uncomfortable, his accent thickening as he got more nervous.

"But you've never been attracted to a man before."

"Yes."

"You have?" he asked, wondering if he had got the wrong end of it.

"No, I meant yes, I hadn't been… I don't know what I mean," Patrick said honestly. "I haven't been this confused in, well ever." Ianto nodded.

It was hard to know what to say to the young man. Part of him wanted very much to warn him off…When two people love each other very much…bollocks, not that he could pull it off anyway. But John Hart was trouble, not like Jack. It was easy enough to remember how he and Jack had come together. He had been attracted to him from the moment he fell out of the sky and landed in his arms trying to catch Myfanwy, he had felt something.

At the time he had put it down to loneliness, to the fact that the woman he loved was half converted to a cyberman and all he wanted was to get her well. He was tired, cold and scared, and Jack was so warm. He knew all about him, had done his homework, and even accepted that he would sleep with him, if that was what it took, but it wasn't. All it took to get him into Torchwood was a little male bonding, and a convenient Pterodactyl. He pushed all those thoughts away and got on with it, with the business of Torchwood, and helping Lisa, and if he regretted it, wanted to confide in his boss who regardless of what he had charged him with at the time, cared enough to ask, enough to remind him to eat his vegetables, then that didn't matter. Ianto knew he had some mildly obsessive traits, but there was no way to break out of them. After it was over, when Jack had not only failed to kill him, but had taken the time to help him get back on his feet, it came back to him, but he didn't know what it was he wanted, and anyway he told himself it was just gratitude, nothing more. He wasn't bent, he knew it, couldn't be.

It wasn't too long after their little adventure with the cannibals, he had only been back in the field for a couple of weeks, he knew that. They had gone out after a large Rift spike that had turned out to be a couple of alien drug dealers looking to set up shop. The dealer had gone down, but not before his bodyguards had thrown Jack and Ianto across the empty warehouse in a seedy area of Newport. He couldn't now remember the species, but he did remember hitting his head and wondering if he had killed Jack when they landed in a tangle of arms and legs. When all the clean up was done, and everyone else had gone home, Jack had found him wandering around the Hub. He was cold, lonely, and hadn't been sleeping all that well, between the nightmares he had before, and the ones left over from almost being a cannibal feast, closing his eyes wasn't exactly his favorite thing.

That night he had asked Jack to stay. Ianto realized later that he would have done anything to convince him, but it wasn't necessary. Then when he woke after a short nap, his face buried in Jack's shoulder…well, it had taken much more effort to convince Jack that he wasn't taking advantage than to convince himself that this was something he wanted. He had never regretted it, either, not really. Not even when Jack had gone off with his doctor and come back three months later, more damaged and more settled than he had been before. Ianto shook it off, all these thoughts weren't going to help Patrick, John wasn't Jack, and he certainly didn't think that it would end up the way he and Jack had. It just couldn't. John was much more stable or something than he had been, but at the moment he was also a walking target with people of unknown origin out to get him, and that was the least of the downsides.

"They do something to you, I'll give you that. Before Jack, I had never considered it. I still don't, not other men, just Jack," he said finally.

"That's it, exactly, I would never have, only he's there and he gets close, talks about things that I've not even considered and yet…"

"Jack says it's the pheromones. I can't tell you what to do, or how to feel. I can only say that it isn't an easy decision; at least it wasn't for me. The two of them, they're different. They don't see things the way you and I do, no restrictions. If it feels good, all the parties are willing and no one gets hurt unintentionally, then that is all right. It takes some getting used to. If you want to ask questions about the sex, go ask Jack, because I certainly won't tell you, and I've never slept with John. All I will say, is be careful, and stand up for yourself, if there is something that you aren't comfortable with, say so. If he is the least bit like Jack he will respect that. Not saying he won't try to change your mind, but that is between the two of you. John Hart may be a fun ride, but don't get your heart involved. He's not like to settle down soon, and unless you feel like giving up the earth for him, then…"

"I'm not talking about getting serious," Patrick said. "I just…I want to know, you know what I mean? Like I might be missing something?"

"If that's a reason you can live with, then it's your decision. If you want to know more about John, ask Jack. I won't try to talk you out of it."

"Even though you hate him?" Patrick asked, though he was obviously trying not to make an accusation of it.

"I don't. I'm not comfortable with him, I never will be, I don't think," he told the other man. "I used to hate him, but I think I finally feel comfortable enough that I don't have to worry anymore. I suppose after all we went through, it doesn't matter any more."

"Tanks, mate, I guess I just needed someone to talk to, someone who understands." Ianto nodded.

"If you decide," he said. "You can always talk to me."

Patrick gave him a smile, looking more comfortable than he had since he walked into the kitchen, stood up and gave him a wink as he headed out the door. "I'll do tat, den, when I've made up my mind."


	20. Stakeout

It was just gone 1:00am when Ianto pulled the battered Saab into the parking slot on the empty side street. After a sweep of the area, a figure in a dark hoodie slipped out of the shadows and into the open back door.

“Here’s the gear,” Jake said, passing the cobbled together receiver into the front seat.

“Anything so far?”

“Nothing yet, though the equipment is working.  If this is a direct feed then the fact that it's been pretty normal at the Hub will have them bored stiff and careless, but I’m betting that as long as nothing alerts them, they just store the images and go through with facial recognition, let the computer do the boring bit.”

“If it’s just a relay, we’ll pick up the signal when it transmits, triangulate, and follow it to the next location.”

“That’s the idea.  If they’re clever, they might use several relays and different signals but we’ll have to see later. Clyde’s people are using channel 3, but he has an override to broadcast on all frequencies in case. Think he’s turned in, but one of his lads happens to have a cousin works the all night coffee place on the other side of the street. He’s set in the window looking a uni student on an all nighter. The cousins got the other frequency unit under the counter and tied into his mobile.”

“Great, if we have to change locations, we won’t be that lucky, I’m betting, but for now it helps a lot.”

“Don’t bet, sounds like this Evans kid is related to half o’ south Wales.”

“Evans is one of the more common Welsh surnames,” Ianto said. “But they’re not all related to each other…well, not directly. My Dad’s sister married an Evans, so did my sister,” he finished with the familiar mental twinge he got every time he felt when thinking of her.

“Says the man named Jones,” Jake snarked. “Okay, all yours and no steaming up the windows. Their relay is over there, top that building, tied into the camera, it's a physical box, three minutes in a repairman’s togs and no one the wiser,” he said before slipping out of the car with a quick wave.

An hour later, Ianto pulled the thermos out to refill the coffee and tried again to get comfortable. The old Saab had been borrowed from Gwen and Rhys and he just couldn’t get the seat adjusted quite right.

“You didn’t have to come, you know,” Jack said quietly.

“Yes, but that would leave either John or Patrick and I’m not sure I want to spend four hours in a car with either of them.” Jack nodded. “Not that I’m sure the two of them together is exactly a good idea either…” he paused, wondering if he shouldn’t tell Jack about Patrick.

“Because John’s trying to get him in bed, you mean?” Jack said before he could make up his mind. “Don’t worry, John will be on shift when he’s on. Not that he won’t flirt, even make suggestions, but he’s a professional.”

Ianto held his tongue, resisting the urge to ask 'a professional what'.  "Patrick came to talk to me earlier about…” He paused, not exactly sure how to approach the subject.

“John’s flirting bothering him? I can ask him to back off, won’t necessarily do much good but…”

“No.  The opposite actually. He wanted some advice on…” Oh, this just wasn’t getting any better.

“He asked _you_ about sleeping with John Hart?” Jack said, shocked.

“Not exactly, and I told him to come to you ‘bout that. No, more like how to deal wit’ being attracted to John when he’d not been curious before. You two, well, you’re not exactly thick on the ground.”

“Ahhhh…. Understood. What did you tell him?”

“Keep his feet on the ground an’ stand up for himself, an’ not to get attached.”

“Could have said that about us, when we started out,” Jack reminded him as he slipped an arm around his shoulders, still managed to stay in position watching the street while Ianto readjusted the box.

“Could have,” he agreed. “Think we both did, along with Gwen, Tosh, Owen…”

“Yeah, but it worked out.”

“True, but do you really see John Hart settling down?”

“With John, I never try to guess, he could settle down with the right two, or three, or…”

“OK, enough. Don’t want to think about it, thanks.”

It was getting late, or rather early and Ianto was starting to think that the entire stakeout was going to be a bust, at least their shift, when Jack’s wrist strap beeped once and the detector lit up in Ianto’s hands.

“Contact,” Jack said.

“Just leaving from this end to trade off,” John’s voice came over the comm, startling Ianto. “If we track from here…”

“Rendezvous without looking like an invasion, take Patrick’s car, and let him drive.” John Hart complained, but they had tuned him out as they tried to figure out where the signal was leading.

“Streets down there are narrow, and some one way. Might best put you out and find another route for the car.” Jack looked at him. “I’ve been reviewing the maps and the changes round town since my… since I wasn’t around.”

“Yeah, plus it allows us to check the lay of the land.” There was a discreet beep as the UNIT operative gave them a nod and pulled out on an old Vespa. “Once more the importance of your local knowledge is showing.”

“That and I’ve more chance of findin’ a legal parkin’ spot and not having to explain to Rhys getting his car towed _again_.”

“Hey, I haven’t gotten it towed in at least…” Jack didn’t finish the sentence. “It wasn’t my fault,” he said, trying another tack while they changed places in the car and followed the signal. While Ianto drove, Jack managed to wedge the tracker in a position where it could be seen without him being in danger of taking his eyes off the road, though there were few cars or anything else stirring yet.

Another few blocks and the quiet streets were full of cars, when Ianto stopped and put Jack out. “I’ll come round the other way, from the south, only way I get the car through.”

“Keep your comm. open,” Jack reminded him with a quick kiss, even though he knew Ianto always did. Outside the car he continued on, following the signal. Several blocks over it suddenly cut out.

“What’s happening people?” Jack said urgently.

“Signal stopped, looking more and more like it’s automated,” Patrick answered. “If I can triangulate from everyone’s position…” He trailed off muttering.

“Hold your positions,” Jack’s said calmly and crisp enough for Ianto to be fairly certain that he was irritated. More muttering followed.

“Ok, Jack, I’ve got the new location, we were right, it’s a relay. Two blocks east, and off the street, attached to the CCTV, over an off license.”

“See it. Positions. Ianto?”

“Parking the car, half a block on your left,” he said, flashing the lights briefly as he caught sight of Jack leaning against a building as if trying to get a cigarette lit.

“See you, Patrick, John?”

“Tryin’ to find a parkin space. I can see the camera. Oh, there you are, see ya’ now.”

“OK, Evans?” It took a couple of seconds to remember the boy, well, man from UNIT who was also sharing their comm. system.

“Roof top behind you, Captain Harkness,” the young man said.

“Ok, Patrick, if this is a relay…”

“They’ll either pick up the info, download it at a specific time or forward it on, using a different signal, possibly a different frequency. I’m already scanning for it. If we’re lucky, this is where their caching it. Means one of them comes down and downloads from that coffee shop cross the street. Bloke wit’ a laptop pretty inconspicuous round here.”

“Ok, Patrick, it’s all yours. Ianto and I are heading back to the Hub, if you get anything new…”

“We’ll know where to find you, night kiddies.  Take pictures for me,” John Hart said.

“In your dreams,” Ianto muttered, forgetting his channel was open.

“Nah, want to know what’s in my dreams, Eyecandy?”

“Goodnight, John,” Jack said, cutting him off as he found and slid into the Saab.

“Sorry, forgot I had the channel open.”

“Not a problem, happens to us all. You’ve got to learn not to let him get to you.” Ianto just nodded, plotting the route back home.


	21. A lull

After a few (far too few) hours of sleep, Ianto was up again, making another round of coffee for the morning meeting. Clyde had snuck in earlier, using the same secret and largely disused entrance that had admitted Tarleton and his minions under the principle that they wouldn’t be watching that one. Not to mention that it had been recently swept for everything and secured. He brought with him the young Evans that they had almost met the night before. John Hart and Patrick had turned up as well, having turned over the surveillance to Jake and David. He could hear the other time traveler’s complaints clearly as Chris dragged him down to medical to make sure he’d not managed to damage himself on stake out.

“All right people,” Jack said from the railing outside the conference room, “five minutes.” Gwen was coming through the cog door, lights and sirens flashing, with Rhys at her heels.

Ianto turned, then turned back, sidearm already in his hand. “Jack,” he said urgently, moving to cover the couple. “If that’s Gwen and Rhys…”

“Stand down, Ianto,” the Captain said, not looking the least upset. “Nice one, Luke, where’d you get the shimmer?” There was a shift and indeed, Gwen and Rhys turned into Maria and Luke Smith, standing in the middle of the hub. Ianto returned his sidearm slowly.

“Thank you, Sir. How did you know?”

“First, Gwen’s already here, came in the garage this morning hiding in the back seat of Tish’s husband’s car, slipped in when she dropped her daughter at school. Second, you said you’d find a way of getting yourselves safely in, and third, my wrist strap detected the particular energy signature. Not a lot of that tech here. Where’d you get it?”

“I’ve had it a while, the Doctor gave it to my mum ages ago for me to play with. I’ve been enhancing it since. But what if we’d been someone else?”

“Then you wouldn’t have gotten past Tish, you had to show yourselves then or you’d be secured upstairs, bolted in.”

“We asked her not to announce us,” Maria said. “I wanted to see if people were really fooled. We can’t see it, you know, not on ourselves anyway.”

“Tell Ianto how you take your coffee and get up here, you two,” Jack said with a fond smile before young Doctor Smith launched into a long winded explanation of the tech involved. He was much better than he used to be, and Ianto was truly fond of the young alien and his wife, but he still tended to run long when he got excited.

“Oi, Lukie boy, Maria, get up here,” Clyde called down.

Pretty soon they were all in the conference room, a bit more crowded than usual, and breakfast was in full swing. John Hart had managed a seat between Patrick and Chris and was busy flirting outrageously with both of them, though he’d already made passes at Clyde (again) and made a couple of suggestions to Luke and Marie before Jack broke in, reminding him that there were more important things that his libido, and that the Smiths were both young enough to be his grandchildren, not to mention what Sarah Jane would do to them both. Then he’d started the meeting.

After an hour, they’d broken up and headed off to their separate assignments. Clyde was off to relieve the other man, named Davies, not surprisingly. (“What, couldn’t find a Jones,” Patrick snarked). Evans, Patrick and John headed off to the showers and their (hopefully) separate beds. Jack had assigned Luke and Maria to look over all the data Ianto had collected and try to figure out what Tarleton’s plan was. Jack, after a few minutes wandered down to the lab. Ianto knew he was worried, about Tarleton, about John Hart and the people after him, even about the friends now in hiding in a distant time and place. It was Jack’s nature to take on the world. He made a mental note to give him an hour and then go check on him. Meanwhile, he turned over the files to Luke and Maria to review while he excused himself to feed the rest off the residents. He already knew everything that was in them.

After checking Janet and her charge, who seemed none the worse for wear, fed the hoix and another creature whose identification wasn’t clear, he grabbed his things and headed for the upper level for a much more pleasant task. He wasn’t sure if it was the sound of the bucket, or the smell of breakfast, or some other factor, but by the time he was in place, the two resident reptiles were already launching from their cave up high in the wall. Myfanwy got fed first, not only being the senior but because she was too big to hand feed. She couldn’t land on the railing very well, nor balance for long.

“You really do have pet Pterodactyls,” young Evans said, from below him in an awed voice. “Thought the Leu was having me on.”

“More or less,” Ianto said, unable to resist a moment of pride. “Would you like to have a go?” He offered the young man a glove. Myfanwy was polite and it didn’t take much. He agreed and soon Ianto had him throwing fish for her like a pro, while he turned to giving Gwydion his breakfast. The young male was not only much younger but a much smaller species so Jack had managed to get him used to hand feeding, though he would still get his turn to catch a couple of smaller fish when she was done. He didn’t think there would be a problem, but overall he preferred them to eat separately. Afterward, he sent the happy young man off to his bunk, having had the experience of a lifetime and probably not the strangest thing that he would see in a career with UNIT.

Luke had already read through the material and was busy making notes on a data pad, working out several possible chains of correlation, some they had already thought of, other new, none of them good. Ianto left him to it and went to see to Jack after a brief stop at the coffee machine. When he entered the lab, Jack was bent over a scanner, looking at the bullet Chris had removed from John Hart.

“Coffee,” he said quietly.

“Thanks,” Jack said, not looking up.

“Find anything?”

“It looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t quite place it. It’s not a tracker round, or not one that I’ve ever seen, and it doesn’t seem to be giving off a signal on any frequency known to me or Torchwood. John scanned it too, just in case I missed something, at least that’s good news. Besides, most things have trouble tracking through the time vortex. Why kill Hooper? I mean, I can understand John, he has some bad habits and can rub people the wrong way.”

“Like anyone who has ever met ‘im,” Ianto said but quietly.

“He has his good points. They are few and far between, but he has them, and I’m not just talking in bed. But that’s what I can’t understand. We are assuming Ladonna is dead as well, but why go after her, why any of them? I’m missing something and I don’t like it.” Ianto placed a hand on his lover’s shoulder.

“We’ll figure it out, Jack but right now, let’s concentrate on the immediate problem. You are pretty sure that John Hart bought some time coming back here, maybe even lost them all together, yes? So let’s take care of the other problem. One thing at a time.”

“Yeah, one thing at a time. What’s on the schedule for today?”

“The usual, stop the villain, save the world, be a hero…”

“Hero gets the boy?” he said with a tired leer.

“Think you’ve already got that taken care of.” Jack nodded and kissed the younger man, just a quick one, a promise for later.

“I’ll just put this up,” Jack said, and Ianto returned to his work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all, thank you for reading. Please do the usual. I am sorry it has been a while, but I've had two deaths in the family, and we just finished with the last ones funeral. I am hoping to have more for you soon.


	22. Movement.

Ianto was clearing up after lunch when the comm. beeped and broadcast into the hub. “Jack, we’ve got a possible at that coffee place.” David’s quiet voice filled the large room. “Can’t get close enough to get a picture to confirm, but the height and weight match and he’s cagey.”

Jack thought for a moment. “Chris,” he bellowed. “Get the contacts in, and get down there. Ianto can ID him from here.”

“Sorry, should have thought to bring them.”

“No, would still need you in case he moves. I want him covered tighter than the penalty area on the last day of the premiership.” Ianto looked at him curiously, sports metaphors were not his strong suit. Actually Jack hadn’t been much for sports outside the bedroom involving the two of them. “What,” Jack said, with a shrug. “I had to do something to keep myself busy nights.”

“Jack, I should be the one going. I can ID him without the contacts.”

“Negative,” David said before Jack could answer. “Ianto, you’d have to go inside, get close. Otherwise, we would have already gotten a picture. He’s keepin’ well hidden, knows where the CCTV is and the shop is small.”

“But Tarleton probably has pictures of all of us. We don’t know how long the surveillance has been going on," he argued as Chris pulled a knit slouchy hat over her white blond hair.

“Damn,” Jack said softly. “Now what…”

“I think I can help you, Jack,” Luke Smith said with a smile and tossed something to him. The captain grinned.

“Brilliant.” He waved Chris over and attached the band to her wrist. “This should…” He paused and then pressed the button. Sarah Jane Smith stood before them, wearing the same clothes and slouchy hat. It wasn’t Sarah Jane as she was now, well into her nineties though still feisty, but the young woman she had been when she first met the Doctor. Jack smiled. “You’ve done quite a bit of modifying. Usually they just take your appearance and shift it to match the dominant species. They use them for exploration, research, cuts down on the observer effect. But this is full on camouflage.”

“Can’t get past some things, not yet,” Luke said proudly. “I have to load the pictures and it really isn’t effective with significant height/weight differences, because it won’t cover differences in movement patterns. That one’s Maria’s."

“All right, Miss Smith, I suggest you slip out…”

“I’ve got an entire tourist group up here,” Tish broke in, obviously monitoring also. Ianto had taught her well. “Use the stairs and you can slip out with them.”

“There we go. As soon as you get a look at him, let’s get facial recognition going and…” He was cut off, this time by the distinctive sound of the UNIT direct line. Ianto immediately moved to answer it. After a short conversation, he turned his attention to all those now focused on him.

“That was the Brigadier’s office. She’s on her way down, needs a meeting, immediately.”

“When and where?” Jack said, his face still, hiding the concern Ianto knew was lurking beneath.

“Sunset, the old safe house outside town.” There was a moment as pain passed over Jack’s handsome face, then it was gone, and he just nodded. “Sorry Jack,” he said, quietly enough that only the two of them could hear. “But it’s one of the few places we know they can’t trace. I’ll arrange everything.”

“I know you will. It’ll be fine,” he said, putting a hand on his young lover’s arm. But Ianto knew him, and he knew better.

The waiting was the hardest part. Ianto busied himself with getting supplies together for the evening meeting, and Luke and Maria had returned to the files, to finish their summary but everyone else seemed to be just waiting, well everyone but John Hart, who was once again working on the CCTV footage, trying to back trace Tarleton’s movements. They had managed to track him back as far as his lunch meeting the other day, though the camera didn’t show his companion, but his route after the alert was a lot more complicated, especially since he was actively trying to avoid the CCTV. Fortunately he had only a rudimentary knowledge of how extensive the network was, or just how much access they had. Patrick was next to him, pulling up other area surveillance as they tracked, hacking on the fly where necessary.

“In,” Chris said finally, causing everyone on the main floor to turn to the main screen in time to watch through her eyes as she entered the coffee shop, a tiny place with a bar against the front window with a handful of stools and a couple other tables, mostly taken up with a combination of people. They watched her go to the counter and order a drink.

“Over by the window, in the corner of the bar, tucked in at an angle.” There was a bob as she acknowledged, no way to vocalize in the crowded shop. Chris got her coffee and moved to the seat directly next to the man, one of the free stools at the bar.

“This taken?” she asked, bold as brass. The man looked up at her for one quick moment, straight in the eyes.

“Gotcha,” Jack said as the man shook his head and shifted, once again ducking his head down in front of his computer, while Chris settled in with her novel. “Stay put for now, don’t want to spook him,” he said.

“That’s one,” he said. “I didn’t get as good a look at the other, but it’s definitely him. The other one had a northern accent, probably near Manchester, this one, he didn’t say as much. He’s not the one that…” he paused. “He stole the weevils, and then tried to break through the lockdown to get into the rest of the archives, I could hear him.” Ianto closed his eyes.

“Running him through all the databases,” Gwen said. She’d been pretty quiet all day, and Ianto reminded himself to talk to her. He wondered if she was regretting having taken herself out of the field. Certainly she had been distracted the last couple of days. “Might take a bit, wish we had fingerprints, they go faster ‘n facial recognition, even with this system.” There was a bobble from where Chris was reading a novel, old Heinlein, Ianto thought, if he wasn’t mistaken. Only Chris would read old Science Fiction when she lived it. She turned slightly and they saw her slip something just barely out of her pocket, about the size of a modern smart phone. The portable fingerprint scanner, leave it to the doctor not to forget any possibilities.

They tried not to stare at the monitor, waiting. Chris was under orders to stay long enough not to look suspicious, but not too long. She would get the fingerprints if possible, but watching her book as she read, occasionally checking her phone as if waiting for a call, was slightly less exciting than watching paint dry, so Ianto returned to the files with Luke and Maria. John Hart, who had pronounced the thug undoable without chemical enhancement, possibly not even then, had returned to his footage and Patrick, while Gwen was manning the facial recognition impatiently and Jack, he was pacing. His lover waited slightly less well than a toddler and only slightly better than John Hart with nothing to distract him.

“I’ve read this book,” Jack said, as he started reading over the screen. “Heinlein, brilliant guy, met him once or twice.”

“How did you meet an American Science Fiction author?” Gwen said, clearly not certain if she believed him.

“I’ve met more than my share, but in case of Bob, I met him during the war, and then later, because of that, I vetted him for Torchwood. They got a little concerned when he ‘invented’ a couple of things in his books that were stowed away in the archives. Pure coincidence, of course, but it wouldn’t be the first time a writer using a penname was a Torchwood operative. There was this one case…” He stopped and everyone turned to look. Jack never stopped in the middle of a story for no reason.

Chris had shifted a little sidewise and they could see him carefully closing up his computer, looking around a bit cagey before apparently deciding it was safe enough. Then he rushed off in the direction of the toilets.

The doctor turned even more, then dropped her paper napkin. Leaning over to pick it up, she ran the small scanner over the counter where he had been, before settling back into her chair and going back to her book.

“Incoming,” Patrick said, having rolled over to a different monitor and punching the keyboard as if he could make it hurry faster if he beat it. “It's going to take a few, I’m going to need to do some separatin’, but with the picture,” he said, before trailing off into incomprehensible mumble.

“Chris, you're out as soon as you finish your coffee. Jake, one of you be prepared to tail him. Make the call between you.” There were affirmations and a nodding over the Heinlein.

“Okay, Jack, running them now, starting with Military, Government databases, UNIT, and of course the police, UK first, Ianto?”

“It was definitely a London accent, though I can’t narrow it down, he didn’t have a lot to…”

 “Got you, you bugger,” Patrick said loudly. The large screen, which had been showing a Chris’ eye view of the world, had been replaced with the sort of ID pictures which only Jack Harkness could manage to look human and made most people look terminally ill or a candidate for serial killer of the year. This one was definitely the latter.

“Yep, that’s the other one.”

“Edward David Hennings, you had it right, grew up… hmmmm, used to have a friend or two on that estate, in fact, Gwen, get Mickey Smith on the phone, he’s around the same age, same estate, worth a try at any rate. Military straight from school, good with electronics, though a mediocre student, definitely sounds like Mickey.”

“Oi, watch it, Captain.”

“Mickey, just the man I need.”

“Ianto know about this?”

“You wish.  Need to ask you about someone who grew up on the same estate as you and Rose.”

“Might know ‘im, might not, this to do wif what come in on the updates?” Mickey asked over the speaker.

“Yep, Guy’s name is Edward David Hennings, looks like he went into the army after school then scored a transfer over to UNIT… How are those UNIT records coming?”

“One minute, keep your pants on boss…” Patrick said.

“Hennings, white guy, ‘e got an ‘ead like a block, nose been broken at least once, ginger?”

“You know him. "

“Mate o’ mine's the one what broke ‘is nose over a girl summer before our last year at school.”

“What can you tell me about him? That’s not in the file.”

“Don’t know, haven’t seen ‘im since before I was away wif the Doctor, and we weren’t exactly friends ‘fore that. ‘e was smart enough but somefing off ‘bout ‘im, and that was before ‘is older brover got done for GBH. So what’s goin’ on?”

“Nothing good, yeah, see here, brother Allen, jailed in 2006, got out and right back in. Mother dead, casualty of the Canary Wharf invasion, she was shopping and got caught in the street. Looks like he went over to UNIT shortly after, I’ll have to look up whoever cleared him, served…Oh, hell,” Jack said, going ghostly pale.

“Jack…” All eyes were riveted to their boss.

“He was on the Valiant.”


	23. Complications

The Hub fell silent. No one, save Jack and Tish, knew exactly what had happened aboard the Master’s flagship, but they had heard bits and pieces about a year that only some of them had been alive for and didn’t remember save in nightmares, ten percent of population killed immediately, forced labour camps and starvation, death and horror. No one had to ask when either, it was apparent from his tone of voice that he wasn’t talking about the new _Valiant_ , just rebuilt after its destruction by the Daleks. Neither Ianto nor Gwen had ever had the heart or the courage to ask Jack directly what had happened to them or to him, but sometimes they could see the looks.

“Tish, I need you down here,” Jack said tersely. The colour was starting to come back to his face, replaced by determination. “Micky, none of this gets to Martha, got it?”

“Gotcha, Boss,” he said.

“Jack,” Ianto had come down and put a hand on his lover’s arm, just a light touch, a little reassurance, and Jack gave him a smile that was only a little haunted.

“Ok, most of the people aboard the _Valiant_ were caught in the Master’s mind control, most of the planet, in fact. The killings broke some of them out of it, but some were willing participants, psychos looking to follow a bigger psycho. Problem was, once the Doctor took over Archangel and people came back to themselves, it was damn hard to figure out which was which. Some were ret conned right off, unable to cope with what they’d been put through.”

“You offered us, Jack,” Tish said, softly, having got down to the floor. “All of us, Mum, Dad, Me, Martha, it was our choice not to take it.” Jack nodded but Ianto could see that he still kept the scars, though only inside.

“Anyway, some people were ret conned, some chose not to, others tried but couldn’t cope. Tish, you recognize this guy?”

“Yeah, think so. He was one of the electronics blokes. I took food down once or twice, mostly ugly talk, at least they kept their hands to themselves. You’d not have seen him, Jack.” That was all that was said about that.

“Well, looks like he refused the ret con but his behavior became an issue, written up several times for his attitude, couple of fights, finally he was offered ret con and a psych discharge. Didn’t take it, he’s been AWOL since. Jake, you two listening?”

“To every word, Sir.”

“When you come off, can you see…”

“UNIT’s huge but I’ll check among my electronics friends, see what kind of secret squirrel this bloke is. Meanwhile ready to follow him, when he leaves.”

“Ok, Ianto, can you contact…”

“I’m on, Jack,” Clyde said. “Want me to read the Brig in?”

“Yes, please. Tell her we need to know everything we can about _Valiant_ survivors who are still at UNIT. Ianto, you get the ones who took ret con, either immediately or later. Background, location, you know what I need.”

“I always do,” he said, but was already turning to the nearest monitor.

“Patrick, I want everything on Tarleton, we should have done this already but I think we’ve been too scattered. Everything, Patrick, and I mean everything.”

“I’ll have you the first person who put a nappie on him,” he said, turning back to his computer.

“We are through with defense, it's time we turned the tables on them and to do that we need information.”

Once again everyone scattered to their separate stations, this time feeling like they were getting somewhere.

 

About an hour later they were all gathered in the conference room, juggling files, data pads, and various odds and ends. Ianto, of course, brought the coffee, passing it out neatly round the table before settling in next to Jack, his own space organised with everything lined up neatly.

"Okay, what do we know?"

"He's still in place, Sir," the team on the coffee shop check in over comm. "So far, we can't detect him transmitting anything, but we are monitoring."

"Good, next..."

"The Brigadier has been briefed," Clyde said. "She's well past pissed, she's got someone running in depth searches of everything that Tarleton has even been near since he came, also trying to figure out where he was during..." he paused.

"That year, yeah. What else? What about other UNIT personnel from the _Valiant_ , that are still in and didn't take the ret con?"

"Okay, of the staff, not including captives, hostages, and people coerced into working on special projects, there were over a hundred, mostly UNIT, Army, and government employees, some from special services, and a couple SAS that got caught by Archangel and were useful for someting or other.  The Master's records were wiped at his death by person or persons unknown, also no record of whether or not it was downloaded first," Ianto looked at Jack.

"Not me, I was busy with the paradox machine and then..." he stopped. There was a lot that he wasn't saying and Ianto knew he'd be taking the change out in nightmares. "Dealing with other things," he finished. No one questioned it.

"The Doctor?" Luke asked.  He knew about that year, but only from what his Mum had told him, and she didn't remember it either, for which he was grateful.

"I doubt it, not that he wouldn't have, but he was...It was hard for him, I don't know all, but he was the only other Time Lord in the Universe."

"It's hard to be the only one," Luke said, probably the only other person besides Jack at the table who knew what it was to be unique. And unlike the Doctor, neither of them knew what it was to have another, much less lose one. Marie patted his hand and at the other end of the table, Ianto, more subtly, rested a hand on Jack's knee.

"So who, an insider?"

"It was chaos, after," Tish said, speaking for the first time. "Everyone seemed to be genuinely surprised and back to normal. Some were completely devastated by what they'd done."

"Yeah, we had ten attempted suicides in the first days alone, five successful ones, and an even dozen deaths that probably were, but they labelled them undetermined for the families."

"Okay, that's twenty-seven, I assume all attempted suicides were ret conned?"

"Yeah, unfortunately, three of them were unaffected, but they are all well cared for, locked up in a secure facility, along with five others who were..."

"Yeah, I remember those," Jack stopped him. "Nothing to be done. What about the rest?"

"Okay, UNIT personnel," Clyde began. "Fifteen accepted the ret conn straight off, nine of those were in good enough shape to go back to active duty, the rest retired to civilian life. We monitor them just in case. Ten refused ret con, though there was a mandatory course of counseling they had to complete. All of those returned to UNIT in one capacity or another, now here is where things get interesting.  Three others have gone AWOL, all with discipline issues that were about to earn them mandatory ret conn. Got full psych profiles coming in."

"Thanks, Clyde, good job. So we are talking about four possible so far. Do you have pictures?" Clyde tapped on his pad and three pictures appeared on the monitor.

"That one," Ianto said, pointing to the one in the center.

"Harry Morrison, you're right, Ianto, born on a small estate near Manchester, background much like his friend, history of petty stuff, Father done for murder during a dispute over a drugs transaction, mum an addict, died before he left school, raised by an aunt, Military, transfer to UNIT, interesting, looked like he transferred same time...Yeah," Patrick trailed off, mumbling and tapping away at his computer.

"Until he returns," Jack said. "Ianto..."

"I looked at all the ret conned personnel, not just UNIT, and I have also looked up those from Canary Wharf. As everyone knows, of the staff of Torchwood One, only twenty six of us survived, not counting..."

"Not counting the half converted, those we could do nothing for," Jack finished for him, patting him on the arm.

"Exactly, of those, twenty were fit and all but one accepted the ret conn. Nothing much to be said. They returned to civilian life thinking they'd got a settlement after their office was destroyed during the 'terrorist attacks' at Canary Wharf, and the release of unknown hallucinogens. The other six were hospitalised with long term disabilities. Two have since died of complications, the other four, three were ret conned with consent when they recovered as much as they could, the last asked for and was granted a transfer to UNIT to continue his work, his research now focuses heavily on alien robotics, designing new ways to defend against things like the Daleks and the Cybermen, though all of them were sucked into the Void."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that..." Jack said.

"Well, the Daleks, of course but..."

"No, the Cybermen that attacked earth were from a parallel dimension, invented by a human trying to cheat death, but this universe already had Cybermen."

"Yep, pretty far away at this point in time, I think," added John Hart. "Transdimensional Cybermen, bloody hell, good thing travel between parallel worlds is almost impossible these days." There were nods of agreement all round.

"Anyway," Ianto said, glad for the distraction, but ready to get back to it. "Of the twenty that were ret conned, four have died since, one of natural causes, he was eighty-six, one of the doctors from Alien Biology. Two married each other, killed last year in that horrible accident on the bridge..."

"The one with the drunk and the petrol truck?" Gwen asked. Ianto nodded and there was a shiver of sympathy. The accident had been at a busy point on a beautiful spring bank holiday and ten people had been killed, including the driver of the truck, who had tried to prevent it from catching fire, rather than running.

"Okay, so that leaves..." Jack asked, focusing them again.

"Cerridwen Wyn-Jones, Cerri. She was a computer development tech at Torchwood One, looking for a way to copy alien computer technology, or at least make it compatible with ours."

"You knew her?" Jack asked.

"Not well, but she was a friend of Lisa's. We went out for drinks with her and her boyfriend occasionally, that kind of thing. Lisa had transferred over to that section to help with their archiving, it was a mess."

"So what happened to her?"

"Missing, police report shows a home invasion type robbery, but the only thing they seem to have taken, besides every bit of technology, is Cerri."

"When was this?" Jack asked.

"A week ago, Cerri had got married and then she divorced about six months ago. The police report was under her maiden name, and since the files were updated, the report didn't register until I started my search."

"Gwen..."

"Get onto the police, call Andy, see what they have on the case, and then get down to talk to the officers in charge and get the SOCO report?" she asked.

"So well trained," Jack said with a tender smile.

"Jack, you need to look at this," Patrick said, urgently, having pulled himself back into consensus reality.  "Okay, so four blokes from the _Valiant_ , all transferred, two from the Army, one Navy, one SAS, nothing unusual, yeah? But look at this, found the same signature on all the transfers, all approved by the same officer, and all were transferred after 'special testing'. I'm still trying to find what the testing was, the encryption on the file is all pretty extreme."

"Okay, who approved this testing and who administered it?"

"Working on it, boss."

"I'll help," John said. "I've tricks they've not thought of on this mudball yet."

"Don't get caught, close the backdoors after yourself, and send the logs to the Brigadier.  Chewing on computer security for letting us hack them again will make her feel better. And who signed those transfer papers?"

"Colonel Mace, UNIT London."

"Mace?" Jack said, surprised. "He's a good man, a little rigid at times.  He wasn't on the _Valiant_ , nor has he ever worked for Torchwood. I know him, I can call and ask. He wouldn't be involved in something underhanded. He's about as sneaky as an elephant and just about as subtle. Ianto, I want you to personally double check all those ret conned, both Torchwood and UNIT, no contact, just the usual. Complete computer sweep, look to see if there is anything unusual. Also, the hospital, see if the other poor sods are still there." Ianto nodded. He'd already started running the programs for anomalies around the survivors.

"Clyde, can you get a list of all the scientists and technicians, non UNIT, who were on the _Valiant_ , all of them.  I don't care if the Master was personally holding their families at gun point, I want everything." Clyde just nodded and tapped away at his pad.

"Chris, medical files, search everything, all these names, psych reports, everything."

"Psych's not really my business, boss," she said.

"But you know enough to flag something suspicious."

"Jack," Ianto interrupted. "We have three hours 'til we are supposed to meet the Brigadier." The Captain nodded. "Luke, Maria, keep at those projections, I'll come help when I've tracked down Colonel Mace...

"We're fine, Jack" Maria said. "We've got everything we need. So far we've got all the trends sorted, along with a stack of miscellaneous files that he accessed for no apparent reason. I'm hand checking to see what's missing while Luke does what he does best."

"I thought you said that..." Luke started, confused.

"The other thing that you do best," she said, half exasperated. "You know, data analysis?"

"Yes, I do," he said, and they, along with everyone else, drifted out of the conference room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading. I did mention this was a bit of a complicated one, yes? So you know what to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Please enjoy this story, read review, all that sort of thing. This is another one that I am hoping to finally finish up.


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